Uralian orogeny

The Uralian orogeny refers to the long series of linear deformation and mountain building events that raised the Ural Mountains, starting in the Late Carboniferous and Permian periods of the Palaeozoic Era, c. 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 to Novaya Zemlya, and it includes in addition to the Ural Mountains, the Pay-Khoy Ridge of northwest Russia and the Mugodzhar Hills of northwest Kazakhstan. Its total length is about 3,500 kilometres (2,200 mi), of which the Ural Mountains are about 2,500 km (1,600 mi).^[1]

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 Middle-Urals Ring Structure caused a disturbance in the orogeny leading to the formation the bend.^[2]