LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Ural Mountains: Central Asia
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The Ural Mountains are - no more than the western edge of a broad belt of folding of which the greater part is buried beneath the Tertiary deposits of western Siberia. Throughout the greater portion of the chain a broad strip of granites, diorites, peridotites, gneisses and other crystalline rocks rises directly from the Siberian plain, and is covered towards the west by Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian and Triassic strata, which are thrown into numerous folds parallel to the length of the chain and usually rise to much greater heights than the crystalline zone. In the north... folded sedimentary rocks lie to the east as well as to the west of the crystalline axis, and between 60° 40' and 46° 50' N. Fedorov distinguishes three zones: (i.) the eastern hill region, where one finds Mesozoic rocks (Chalk, Jurassic) in the north, and Devonian limestones, porphyrites and quartz-porphyries farther south; in this zone most gold placers are found; (ii.) the central mountain zone consists of various amphibolitic metamorphic slates, and also of syenite and gabbro; granites, gneisses, and occasionally serpentines and porphyrites are found subordinately; and (iii.) the western hilly zone consists chiefly of Carboniferous and PermoCarboniferous deposits; Middle and Upper Devonian limestones and, occasionally, crystalline slates are found in a few meridional ridges. The crystalline rocks are usually believed to be of Archean age. The Carboniferous deposits - coal-bearing in the Middle and Southern Urals - although appearing at the surface only as a narrow strip in the west Urals, occupy an extensive area, but are concealed by the largely developed Permian deposits, and that series of sediments which must be considered as intermediate between the Carboniferous and the Permian. These latter, described as "PermoCarbon" by Russian and German geologists, are largely developed in the west Urals.
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The P-wave seismic velocity structure through the central part of the Ural Mountains is shown in Figure 5. This velocity structure is a re-interpretation of wide-angle seismic profiling data collected prior to 1990. The main features of the velocity model are, a) a lower crustal root with its deepest point under the Main Uralian Fault (MUF), b) the comparatively high upper mantle velocities (8.4-8.5 km/s), c) very high lower crustal velocities (7.6-7.8 km/s) below the Urals, and d) a possible low velocity zone at mid crustal depths of 20-30 km (Juhlin et al., 1996).
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The next joint military exercises are planned for 2007 in Russia, near the Ural Mountains and close to Central Asia, as was agreed upon on April 2006 at a meeting of SCO Defense Ministers. Air forces and precision-guided weapons are likely to be used.
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