Tectonic evolution of the northern Ural Orogen

The closure of the Uralian Ocean occurred in Early Permian-Early Triassic time. In the northern Ural fold belt, overthrusting to the west produced a major foreland basin to the west of the mountain chain. In contrast, in the northern extension of the Ural Orogen, the Taymyr fold belt, thrusting was directed to the SE. It is proposed that Novaya Zemlya, at the interface of these two zones, acted as a thin-skinned allochthonous nappe emplaced by gravity tectonics into a basin produced by rapid Permo-Triassic rifting in the eastern Barents Sea.