About the Geological Structure of the Caspian Sea

By

V. I. Savtchenko¹

(1) S.S.E. "Yuzhmorgeologia", Gelendzhic, Krasnodar Region, Russia

 In recent years a large volume of geophysical studies and drilling operations have been conducted in the Caspian Sea (especially, the North Caspian) which resulted in discovering large fields in Kazakhstan and Russia. The Caspian Sea has been studied with regional seismic survey works (1970 -1990s up to 2001). However, on the whole an overage density of seismic operations is not high.

Considerations of the previous studies on the whole allow drawing the following conclusions.

The major part of the promising North Caspian is not studied or has been very poorly studied with few seismic profiles due to extreme shallow water zones (1-2 m). Vast transition zones and zones of reclaim of the North and Middle Caspian, the delta of the Volga and the sea cost of the Kalmic Republic, between two rivers - Terek and Sulak, Terek and Kuma have not been studied. There is no new data on structure of abyssal zones of the sedimentary cover, intermediate complex and basement within the North and Middle Caspian. Nature of joining of the East-European Pre-Cambrian platform with the Scythian-Turan epi-Paleozoic platform as well as natural of the latter with displacements of the Alpine folded belt has not been studied. The nature of joining the Turan and Scythian plates as well as their interrelations have not been defined. It is not clear whether it is a single platform or two independent geostructures.

On the whole there are no valuable geologic-geophysical materials for detailed evaluation of geological structure in Caspian regions.