The Baikal rift system ( USSR).

Abstract

The Baikal rift of Siberia is a 1800km long system of faults and rift valleys associated with a domal uplift. Its central segment is located at the junction between the Sayan-Baikal mobile belt and the Siberian craton in a 'weakened' zone from which the rift propagated to the NE and SW. The Baikal system is characterized also by basaltic magmatism of a rather monotonous composition. Rifting in E Siberia was an independent phenomenon not connected with the collision between India and Eurasia, but rather the result of local heating and gravitational instability of the lithosphere caused by upwelling of the asthenosphere. -Author