A Few Words on the Geology of Western Siberia

K. V. Radugin

When a third or a quarter of a century has passed, it is natural to look back over the road traveled and to single out from what has been achieved the most important things; at such moments one also wishes to outline new prospects for the future. Such a wish is especially natural for us if we recall that as early as 1939 our unforgettable teacher M. A. Usov—the head of the Siberian school of geologists—left us too soon. Almost a third of a century has passed since then. It is therefore quite timely to answer the question of what this school has done for the development of the ideas that it inherited from Academicians M. A. Usov and V. A. Obruchev (the scientific father in relation to M. A. Usov). Answering this question is not simple, but rather difficult, since Soviet geology, like the geology of other countries, has developed rapidly over the last third of a century in many of the most important directions.

Indeed, in 1964, at the Indian session of the geological congress, the problem of the upper mantle was practically raised to its full stature. Of course, in this direction the successes are not as striking as in the field of human penetration into space. But the epoch-making achievements of the USSR in space, which placed Soviet science ahead of other countries in the matter of human penetration into space, also had a great influence on the solution of problems of the geology of the Earth. In connection with these successes we see the emergence of deep geology; in particular, a methodology is being developed for using messengers (various kinds of xenoliths, etc.) to illuminate the structure of great depths.

“Messengers of the depths” can be detected by geophysical methods, for example, when negative gravity anomalies are established over deposits of combustible gas, oil, and rock salt. We shall not speak here about these methods (seismometric, magnetometric, radiometric, and others). They are well known.

The Department of General Geology of the Tomsk Polytechnic Institute, or the Obruchev–Usov Department, has developed a methodology for using “messengers of the depths” to solve theoretical problems and questions of prospecting for mineral resources. In doing so, several scientific directions emerged in the development of this methodology: first, we used products of the dispersion of rocks, minerals, and ores in magma in the form of xenoliths and assimilation zones; second, we tried to lay the foundations of the doctrine of xenogenic admixtures to emanation minerals (in their paragenetic associations), in order to find in these admixtures products of the dispersion of useful minerals of every genesis and age and of other mineral formations; third, we attempted to investigate traces of mecha-

... genetic (tectonic) dissemination of ores, fossil fuels, and so forth (for determining the direction of searches for coal seams, ore bodies, etc., that “blindly” terminate at depth).

Thus, at the present time a progressive direction in geology is the development of problems of deep geology and, in connection with this, progress in the methodology of searching for hard-to-discover deposits of useful minerals, as well as the creation of new methods for discovering them by means of “messengers from the depths.”

Let us next give an example from another field of geology—from the field of the doctrine of geological formations. This doctrine in Western Siberia was founded by Academician M. A. Usov (1936), who linked it with the origin of useful minerals. More than a third of a century has passed since then. And we have seen that it has withstood the test of time. Here is the proof. In 1939, on the basis of this doctrine, a most interesting deposit of sedimentary manganese, carbonate-leptochlorite ores of the marine geosynclinal facies was discovered. The deposit proved to be large, and its value was estimated in billions of rubles (in gold). It would seem that such a practical result from the application of the doctrine of geological formations should have led to the flourishing of this theory and to the intensification of work on it. Indeed, attention to it increased. But, unfortunately, the Tomsk school of Soviet geology did not receive support for its development in this direction. Rather the opposite: even the West Siberian Geological Administration, which had originated in Tomsk, was transferred to Novosibirsk, and then again to Novokuznetsk. Tomsk itself, where two geological faculties worked and continue to work (at the university and at the polytechnic institute), long remained without a geological administration. Thus, the connection with geological practice in Tomsk, although it did develop, could have been stronger and more varied. Despite these unfavorable conditions, the development of the doctrine of geological formations, founded by M. A. Usov (1936), continued for decades. It proceeded, above all, with the aid of detailed geological mapping and with consideration of the doctrine of facies. Incidentally, let us note that M. A. Usov made a fundamental addition to the doctrine of facies: he created the doctrine of the facies of magmatic rocks, and he also developed the concept of the phases of their state; these additions radically improved the doctrine of facies and geological formations. Something similar was done by Academician D. V. Nalivkin, who devoted almost his entire scholarly life to the development of the doctrine of facies of sedimentary geological formations.

Unfortunately, a serious blow was dealt to the doctrine of geological formations (at the Novosibirsk conference on the problem of geological formations), since a decision was adopted to exclude specific geological formations from stratigraphic columns. Incidentally, this decision was adopted only within a narrow circle of geologists of one commission, without open discussion of this fundamentally important question and without involving a broad circle of researchers and the geological community. In a word, specific geological formations, as individuals of the Earth’s crust, disappeared from the legends of geological maps. Thereby great damage was inflicted on our geology: after this, specific geological formations were almost no longer mapped in the USSR; this meant that the entire army of Soviet geologists was excluded from the creative process of concrete, everyday, comprehensive study of particular geological formations and of comprehending the genetic connections between them and useful minerals. Thus the progressive doctrine of geological formations was placed in conditions far from the most favorable for its development. This development,

of course, continued, but it could have been more successful and fruitful had it proceeded without crude and most egregious errors. Yet these errors did occur, and they were made (in a number of characteristic cases, as the history of geological investigations tells us) precisely because the main thing in the doctrine of geological formations was ignored. As a result of such errors, the doctrine of geological formations—a splendid instrument of human thought—proved powerless in resolving the fundamental tectono-stratigraphic questions of geology.

Here is a concrete example of such errors—errors near the city of Krasnoyarsk, in the valley of the Bazaikha River, near the mouths of the Kaltat and Mokhovaya (near the village of Torgashino), where as early as 1907 V. A. Obruchev began his investigations (with a group of student trainees). In the same place, but a quarter of a century later, the young and energetic geologist Yu. A. Kuznetsov (now an academician) carried out his observations. His investigations were careful and fairly detailed. But he did not try to seek out the geological formations existing in nature. As a result he missed three entire pulsational series, or geological formations, lying below the Torgashino limestone,* mapped by Yu. A. Kuznetsov (1932) (moreover sharply unconformably beneath it), but above the Kaltat beds, which he mapped (as did I. K. Bazhenov together with M. I. Nagorskii, who first distinguished these beds in 1936 near the mouth of the Kaltat).

Incidentally, Yu. A. Kuznetsov, my comrade and friend, was a petrographer who for a long time headed the Department of Petrography. He remains a prominent petrographer in the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. He could have applied petrographic criteria and, by means of them, recognized the geological formations he had missed beneath the Torgashino limestone. This did not happen. The reason, evidently, is that petrographic criteria alone, which sometimes indicate lithological similarity, are insufficient. A comprehensive research methodology is needed when distinguishing geological formations. The same reason became the source of another error: Yu. A. Kuznetsov (1932) depicted the diabases of the Red Ridge of the Torgashino Range (i.e., submarine greenstone lavas, and hence synchronous with the enclosing Proterozoic marbles and graywackes) as Mesozoic vein rocks of the primary phase of state (failing to notice their greenstone phase of state and the texture characteristic of pillow lavas), analogous to the rocks of Mt. Chernaya.

Another reason was the preconceived idea of the conformable occurrence (contrary to the opinion of V. A. Obruchev, 1912) of the Torgashino limestone (together with the basal beds) on its basement. To support this idea, another idea was advanced (Yu. Kuznetsov, 1932): that of disharmonic folding, manifested beneath the competent Torgashino limestone in the yielding calcareous-clayey beds (of the Kaltat series). In reality, however, this folding (in its classical form) did not exist. Although a somewhat varying reaction of different (mechanically) conformably lying beds to folding is visible, the principal feature is a sharply expressed additional, and not disharmonic, folding.

The example cited shows how difficult it sometimes is to obtain the true solution of geological questions. At times great experience and much knowledge are insufficient. The principal reason for our successes was, and must be in the USSR, a correct geological theory verified by the practice of substantial discoveries. At its foundation lies the nearly all-embracing doctrine of geological formations. Instead of

* Let us note, for the sake of accuracy, that he used this term (apparently in the Anglo-American, somewhat unprincipled sense) in 1932.

** These tectono-stratigraphic units are the following (from below): Tokmakovskaya, the Khrebtik formation, and the beds of Sukhoi Log.

to place obstacles in the way of its development, as happened in Novosibirsk at the conference on the problem of geological formations, one ought to open before it a broad expanse. This task is important for all geologists of the USSR, including the collective of ZSGU. And it, I think, will reconsider its attitude toward the doctrine of geological formations in its own milieu under the influence of M. A. Usov’s ideas and under the influence of the very nature of Siberia. For in this nature there are laid down—perhaps in hidden form—the foundations of the dialectics of nature, of that very, genuine dialectics.

How fruitful this doctrine is, we became convinced of—almost physically felt—when, beginning in 1922, we traversed tens of thousands of kilometers of Siberian routes over the last half-century. The true ideas of this doctrine may perhaps be compared—in their guiding influence on our paths—not with a compass (a compass in an anomalous field can lead even a not very experienced geologist away from the correct trail), but with the polar star. They did not arise all at once, it seems, in the thirties of the century. But their shoots in science appeared much earlier, together with geology, together with the true influence upon it of our native Earth.

Our routes, as with almost all geologists, were carried out without any preconceived idea. But there was a dream: to discover certain mineral resources, to find something new, if only theoretically important. Gradually, in the process of geological surveying, the doctrine of geological formations took ever greater possession of our thought, and observations accumulated ever more. We tried to teach students the methodology of geological surveying, to teach them how to make discoveries. We took them into the deepest wilderness, to the mosquitoes, to the midges (to the most foul midge—the mokrets, to the gnat), instead of taking them to the southern shore of Crimea, to a beautiful land with an azure sky and an aquamarine sea, where one can get a good tan (but what can a second-year student discover there, where everything is known and discovered?) And our students really did make discoveries—small ones, but discoveries. And they helped us.

With their help we mapped. For more than a third of a century. True, this geological survey was not up to standard, but it was detailed. The material was collected objectively. What preconceived ideas can students have? We mapped geological formations and their parts. We sought and discovered them without costing the state a single kopeck, with the help of students. There, where other geologists, working according to estimates, passed them by. As a result we had to speak at sessions of geological congresses (with written and oral reports) in Moscow, Mexico, Copenhagen, Delhi, Prague. Why did we strive so to go to foreign countries? There, as in Moscow, we tried to defend the priority of the USSR in important theoretical discoveries—in discoveries of objectively, paleontologically substantiated geological systems of the Precambrian. Like the Carboniferous, Permian, and Cambrian systems, we proposed, for the whole world, that on exact geological (especially paleontological) data similar systems be established in the Proterozoic as well (the Chud system in honor of the ancient Chud tribe, the Mana system in honor of the beauty of the Mana River, the Krasnoyarsk, Siberian, Shoria, Sayan, Slavy, etc.).* The struggle for the priority of the USSR in this matter is a complex and difficult task. The establishment and subdivision of Proterozoic systems (at least of the Upper Proterozoic) will probably take no less than a century. This is true if one considers that only recently three international congresses were held merely in order finally to establish in Western Europe, i.e., close to the stratotype, the boundary of such studied systems as the Devonian and Silurian. The task ahead is grandiose. But a beginning has been made. In the USSR. In Western Siberia. Why did this happen? Because the nature of Siberia proved richer in complete geosynclinal sections of the Upper Proterozoic, with rather abundant fossils. Po-

* Subdivisions of Upper Proterozoic systems are also being outlined.

because, owing to this wealth of Siberia, we have found in the Proterozoic even skeletal remains (archaeocyaths, and in addition hyoliths, primitive brachiopods, pogonophores), not counting Precambrian epiphyton. Some archaeocyaths, it turns out, lived during the time when the beds with Newlandia were being deposited, that is, beds a billion years old and more! This is hard to believe, but it is so. We have been checking ourselves for a third of a century. The facts have proved sufficiently stubborn. A billion years ago nature did not ask man how it should proceed, but created in its own way, according to the laws of nature, and not at the pike’s command and not by the will of the creator. This is where our Siberian roads and paths have led us, and continue to lead us.