The Uralian orogeny refers to the long series of linear deformation and
mountain building
Mountain formation refers to the geological processes that underlie the formation of mountains. These processes are associated with large-scale movements of the Earth's crust (tectonic plates). Folding, faulting, volcanic activity, igneous intr ...
events that raised the Ural Mountains, starting in the Late
Carboniferous
The Carboniferous ( ) is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic that spans 60 million years from the end of the Devonian Period million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Permian Period, million years ago. The name ''Carbonifero ...
Palaeozoic
The Paleozoic (or Palaeozoic) Era is the earliest of three geologic eras of the Phanerozoic Eon.
The name ''Paleozoic'' ( ;) was coined by the British geologist Adam Sedgwick in 1838
by combining the Greek words ''palaiós'' (, "old") and '' ...
Era, 323–299 and 299–251 million years ago (Mya) respectively, and ending with the last series of continental collisions in Triassic to early Jurassic times.
The region affected by the orogeny, the ''Uralian orogenic belt'' or the ''Uralides'', is usually thought of as the boundary between Europe and Asia. It extends from the
Aral Sea
The Aral Sea ( ; kk, Арал теңізі, Aral teñızı; uz, Орол денгизи, Orol dengizi; kaa, Арал теңизи, Aral teńizi; russian: Аральское море, Aral'skoye more) was an endorheic basin, endorheic lake lyi ...
to
Novaya Zemlya
Novaya Zemlya (, also , ; rus, Но́вая Земля́, p=ˈnovəjə zʲɪmˈlʲa, ) is an archipelago in northern Russia. It is situated in the Arctic Ocean, in the extreme northeast of Europe, with Cape Flissingsky, on the northern island, ...
, and it includes in addition to the Ural Mountains, the
Pay-Khoy Ridge
The Pay-Khoy Range ( rus, хребет Пай-Хой) is a mountain range at the northern end of the Ural Mountains. It lies within the Nenets Autonomous Okrug.
Geography
The ridge is extended from northwest to southeast. It is located on the Yu ...
of northwest Russia and the
Mugodzhar Hills
Mugodzhar Hills ( kk, Мұғалжар тауы, ''Mūğaljar tauy''; russian: Мугоджары, Мугоджарский хребет) or Mugodzhar RangeKazakhstan. Its total length is about , of which the Ural Mountains are about .
At the latitude of the Middle-Urals Ring Structure (''c.'' 56° N, between Perm and Ufa) the Ural mountains have an eastward-convex bend. It has been proposed that the
Precambrian
The Precambrian (or Pre-Cambrian, sometimes abbreviated pꞒ, or Cryptozoic) is the earliest part of Earth's history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is so named because it preceded the Cambrian, the first period of the ...
sensu stricto
''Sensu'' is a Latin word meaning "in the sense of". It is used in a number of fields including biology, geology, linguistics, semiotics, and law. Commonly it refers to how strictly or loosely an expression is used in describing any particular co ...
'') occurred between three Palaeozoic continents, Baltica,
Kazakhstania
Kazakhstania ( kk, Qazaqstaniya), the Kazakh terranes, or the Kazakhstan Block, is a geological region in Central Asia which consists of the area roughly centered on Lake Balkhash, north and east of the Aral Sea, south of the Siberian craton and w ...
, and Siberia. In the late Precambrian, the northeast margin of Baltica was deformed in the
Timanide
The Timanide Orogen (russian: Ороген Протоуралид-Тиманид, literally: "Protouralian–Timanide Orogen") is a pre-Uralian orogen that formed in northeastern Baltica during the Neoproterozoic in the Timanide orogeny. The orog ...
Pannotia
Pannotia (from Greek: '' pan-'', "all", '' -nótos'', "south"; meaning "all southern land"), also known as the Vendian supercontinent, Greater Gondwana, and the Pan-African supercontinent, was a relatively short-lived Neoproterozoic supercontinent ...
supercontinent. The break-up of this supercontinent opened the Palaeo-Uralian Ocean, in which a number of unidentified continental fragments rifted from Baltica. As Baltica collided with Laurentia to form Laurussia, island arcs and other microcontinents were accreted to Baltica in the Late Devonian-Early Carboniferous.
In the Ordovician-Silurian, Kazakhstania formed separately when
subduction
Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at convergent boundaries. Where the oceanic lithosphere of a tectonic plate converges with the less dense lithosphere of a second plate, the ...
-driven growth accreted crust to a series of small, late Precambrian microcontinents. In the early Late Carboniferous, Kazakhstania began to collide with Laurussia as the Palaeo-Uralian ocean subducted beneath the margins of the latter.
The northern continuation of the Ural mountains, the Pay-Khoy-Novaya Zemlya foldbelt, is the result of the collision between Laurussia and Siberia in the Early Jurassic.
The southern continuation of the Ural mountains, the southern Tian-Shan mountains, formed in the late Palaeozoic with the closure of the Turkestanian Ocean, an Ordovician-Carboniferous southern branch of the Palaeo-Uralian Ocean. Tian-Shan remained a stable platform until the Alpine-Himalayan orogeny in the Pliocene-Quaternary.