ABSTRACT
Two sedimentary basins bordering the Bering Sea in northeastern Siberia, the Anadyr and the Khatyrka, have been the targets of recent Soviet exploration for oil and gas. Drilling in the Anadyr basin has produced noncommercial quantities of gas and condensate from Tertiary volcaniclastic rocks. The Anadyr basin lies due west of Norton basin, a large unexplored sediment-filled Tertiary basin that underlies Norton Sound. Geologically, Anadyr basin lies between a late Mesozoic belt of volcanic and plutonic rocks similar to the Sierra Nevada of California and a complex foldbelt on the south that is structurally and lithologically similar to Franciscan terrane of the California Coast Ranges.
Less extensive exploration in the Khatyrka basin has discovered only noncommercial quantities of oil and gas. The Khatyrka basin extends offshore between Capes Rubicon and Navarin near the northwest end of the Navarin basin on the Bering Shelf, and contains Tertiary sediment deposited within a structurally complex Mesozoic foldbelt that parallels the edge of the continental shelf.
