LITHOSPHERE, 2003, No. 19, p. 5

A comparative analysis of the evolution of Paleozoic basins in the southwest of the East European Craton (Pripyat-Donets aulacogen, Podlasie-Brest depression and Lvov-Lublin marginal trough) has been carried out, and these have been correlated with geological events that occurred in the mobile belt of Central Europe, the Trans-European suture zone, the Carpathian and Caucasian parts of the Paleo-Thetys ocean. Rifting processes in the Pripyat-Donets aulacogen were significantly influenced by tangential stresses from the mobile frame of the platform. At the early stage of the Hercynian these caused the initial break of the Earth’s crust along an old transcontinental fault zone and the subsequent rise of an asthenolith and, at the final stage, influenced markedly the duration and number of stages of rifting processes in the Pripyat and Dnieper parts of the aulacogen. In accordance with the ideas of deep dynamics of continental rifting, the late rifting stage genetically associated with the mantle diapir degradation has been distinguished and substantiated, besides the early and main phases of the rifting basin evolution. In the Pripyat Trough the late rifting phase corresponds to Early-Middle-Carboniferous time, and in the Dnieper Depression – to Carboniferous-Early Permian time. The earlier completion of rifting processes in the Pripyat Trough, which was situated nearer the platform southwestern margin as compared to the Dnieper Depression, was due to synchronous compression events in the Central European foreland zone.

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