Uralian orogeny

The Uralian orogeny refers to the long series of events that caused the land to push upward and form mountains. These events raised the Ural Mountains, which we can still see today. The mountain building began in the Late Carboniferous and Permian periods, which were about 323 to 251 million years ago, and finished in the Triassic to early Jurassic periods.

The area affected by these mountain-building events is called the Uralian orogenic belt or the Uralides. It marks the boundary between Europe and Asia. This belt stretches for about 3,500 kilometres (2,200 miles) from the Aral Sea to Novaya Zemlya. It includes not just the Ural Mountains, but also the Pay-Khoy Ridge in northwest Russia and the Mugodzhar Hills in northwest Kazakhstan.

In the middle part of the Urals, near a place called the Middle-Urals Ring Structure, the mountains curve outward toward the east. Scientists think that an ancient structure from the Precambrian time caused this bend during the mountain-building process.

Formation

The Uralian orogeny describes how the Ural Mountains were formed during the late Carboniferous, early Permian, and Middle Triassic periods, around 300 to 240 million years ago. It happened as three ancient landmasses — Baltica, Kazakhstania, and Siberia — came together.

First, Baltica joined with another landmass called Laurentia to create Laurussia. Then, in the later stages, Kazakhstania moved into Laurussia, and finally, Siberia collided with this combined landmass. These collisions created the mountain ranges we see today along the boundary between Europe and Asia.