Recent Oscillatory Movements

Abstract

By recent oscillatory movements are meant the vertical tectonic movements of the Earth’s crust that are the cause of the formation of major features of the contemporary relief of continents—mountain ranges, depressions, and plains. The observable relief of the Earth’s surface is geologically young. The beginning of the periods of present-day relief-formation dates to a rather different geological time in various places, but in most cases falls into the Late Miocene, and only rarely goes back to the Palaeogene. It has been established that on the site of such mountain ranges as the Caucasus, the Alps, the Tien Shan, and the Cordilleras, there was, at the end of the Palaeogene and beginning of the Miocene, if not quite a flat relief, at any rate, but slightly undulating one. Only later did the stage of “recent tectonic activation”, also called the “neotectonic” stage begin, during which contemporary mountain ranges, including such grandiose ones as the Tien Shan and Pamirs, rose on the surface of the continents. The length of this stage, which as a rule embraced the Neogene and Quaternary, is not more than ten or fifteen million years.