Geomorphology of the southern Kara Sea shelf

Abstract

The paper presents the Cenozoic history of the Southern Kara shelf topography. The region is a peripheral part of the West Siberian Plate submerged under the sea level. The principal morphostructures are relics of the Southern Kara arch, Baidaratsk foredeep and Eastern Novaya Zemlya graben. Some structural-denudational levels are identified E0 have been formed during regressive epochs of the Late Oligocene, Late Miocene, Late Pliocene - Eopleistocene, late Middle Pleistocene and Pleistocene - Holocene boundary. The submarine erosional-depositional levels were formed during transgressive epochs of the Early to Middle Miocene, Pliocene, Early to Middle Pleistocene, Late Pleistocene and Holocene.