Abstract: Establishing a Permian brachiopod biochronological scheme for global correlation is difficult because of strong provincialism during the Permian. In this paper, a brief overview of brachiopod successions in five major palaeobiogeographical realms/zones is provided. For Gondwanaland and peri-Gondwanan regions including Cimmerian blocks, Bandoproductus and Punctocyrtella (or Cyrtella ) are characteristic of the lower Cisuralian, as is Cimmeriella for the middle Cisuralian. As the Cimmerian blocks continued drifting north during the late Kungurian, accompanied by climate amelioration, contemporaneous brachiopods inhabiting these blocks showed a distinct shift from cold-water to mixed or warm-water affinities. However, coeval brachiopods in the Northern Transitional Zone (NTZ) are characterized by warm-water faunas and are associated with fusulinids in the lower Cisuralian. The Guadalupian brachiopods of the NTZ were clearly mixed between the Boreal and palaeoequatorial affinities. The end-Guadalupian is marked by the disappearance of a few characteristic genera, such as Vediproductus , Neoplicatifera and Urushtenoidea , in the Palaeotethyan region. The onset of the end-Permian mass extinction in the latest Changhsingian is clearly exhibited by the occurrence of the dwarfed and thin-shelled brachiopods commonly containing Paracrurithyris .

We present a comprehensive study of one of the key targets of the Sikhote-Alin orogen—Early Cretaceous rocks in the Kiselevka block of the Kiselevka-Manoma tectono-stratigraphic terrane. The characteristic component of natural remanent magnetization (NRM) for these rocks was isolated, and the fold test was positive (Dec = 275.8°, Inc = −33.8°, K = 33.3. α 95 = 8.0°). The paleolatitude along which rocks of the block were forming in the Early Cretaceous was defined by the direction of this component (paleolatitude 18°N ± 5°N) as well as coordinates of the paleomagnetic pole (Plat = 18.6°, Plong = 222.4°, with semi-axis of the ellipse of confidence limit dp = 5.2° and dm = 9.1° of the Kiselevka block. The geochemical composition of volcanic rocks in the block suggests that they formed in a within-plate oceanic environment like volcanic rocks of the Hawaii hotspot. Three paleoreconstructions were developed based on the newly received and published data, in accordance with which the Kiselevka block: (1) in the range of 135–105 Ma was moving on the Izanagi plate northwestward at a rate of 15–20 cm/yr up to the eastern edge of Eurasia, thus covering over 5000 km; and (2) in the range of 105–70 Ma was moving northward along the Eurasian transform margin within the accretionary complex fragment at a rate of 4–5 cm/yr to its current position (Lower Amur) as part of the Sikhote-Alin orogen.

In the Sikhote-Alin-Priamurye area of southeastern Russia, folded and faulted fragments of sedimentary and less common volcanic rocks comprise tectonostrati-graphic units (complexes) that are imbricated. Sections of coherent, correlative strata composed of chert, siliceous mudstone, mudstone, siltstone, and sandstone within the tectonic stacks distinguish subterranes that are grouped into a suite of regional terranes. Among the ubiquitously imbricated strata, the age of deformed units ranges from Middle Paleozoic up to Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous (Tithonian–Berriasian). Chaotic units (mélange) that are represented by siltstone and sandy siltstone matrix containing different-sized and different-aged lumps, blocks, and fragments of cherts, limestone, sandstones, basalt, and gabbro are Callovian to Tithonian in age. Accretion-like processes brought together fragments of a Paleozoic oceanic plateau and abyssal plain fragments of different ages during Middle and Late Jurassic time. The transition from chert to clastic sections tracks the approach of the oceanic strata to sources of detritus presumably close to a continental margin. Paleozoic oceanic rocks began to receive clastic inputs by the Pliensbachian, and Oxfordian chert approached the margin by the Kimmmeridgian. The terrane rocks do not record high-pressure metamorphism nor are they correlative with nearby volcanic “arc” rocks. The absence of these features, commonly associated with subduction at plate margins, may indicate that the rocks have been isolated, presumably by strike-slip faulting, as suggested by mapping.