DNIEPER-DONETS PALAEORIFT

The Devono-Carboniferous intra-cratonic Dnieper-Donets palaeorift transects the southwestern part of the East European platform in a NW-SE direction. It is characterized by linear bounding faults penetrating much of the crust, substantial crustal thinning and syn-rift volcanic activity. The Dnieper-Donets rift developed on cold Precambrian shield-type continental crust. Its rifting stage spans early Frasnian to Late Visean times. During its post-rift evolution an elongate, saucer-shaped basin subsided, the axis of which coincides with the trace of the underlying rift. The Palaeozoic Donets Rift is superimposed on a Late Proterozoic rift. A thermal perturbance of the asthenosphere is thought to have provided the driving mechanism for the development of the Palaeozoic Dnieper-Donets Rift. Rapid thinning of the subcrustal lithosphere in response to advecting asthenospheric melt was coupled with tensional fracturing of the crust and melting of its lower part. This caused an upward displacement of the Moho discontinuity. Post-rift subsidence of the Dnieper-Donets graben was governed by lithospheric cooling. The southeastern parts of this rift system were inverted during the Uralian orogeny.