Joint Russian-Belgian Research Project:

This project aims at investigating the mechanism of basin formation and sedimentation in a compressional to transpressional tectonic environment, in function the basement structural anisotropy, regional changes in stress field, with reference to the Baikal, Tian Shan and Altai-Sayan regions of Central Asia.

The Baikal, Tian-Shan, Altai and Sayan regions belong to the Central-Asian transcontinental dislocation zone, which separates the stable Eurasian platform from the mosaic of microplates of South-East Asia, and whose activity is greatly related to the India-Eurasia convergence.  It is a zone of high tectonic activity, as show by his intense seismicity. Several of several of the world's strongest earthquake occurred in the Mongol-Altai region (western Mongolia), adjacent to the Gorno-Altai region in Siberia. A series of Cenozoic sedimentary basins are aligned along this intracontinental dislocation zone, the largest being the Baikal rift system. Several, smallest sedimentary basins also developed in the Sayan, Altai and Tian-Shan regions, dominated by regional compressive tectonics (horizontal principal compressive stress axis). During the Paleozoic, this region was also a zone of oceanic suture and intense accretion and collisional tectonics, with important thrust and transcurrent brittle movements in the region of investigation. The resulting high anisotropy of the basement had a strong structural control during Cenozoic sedimentary basin development. During Cenozoic and Quaternary, a complex history of uplift, erosion, basin development and sedimentation is evidenced, driven by changes in tectonic activity, in a climatic environment evolving from subtropical (Paleocene-Eocene), to moderately warm (Oligocene-Miocene), arctic (Pleistocene) and temperate (Holocene).