E. SUESS AND RUSSIAN GEOLOGISTS

Numerous citations of Russian sources in “The Face of the Earth” clear demonstrate their importance for the creation of the Altaid concept. Suess' letters to Obruchev, which are almost unknown to the international geologic community, explain how the greatest tectonic concept of Asia (Suess, 1901) was born and bred. Suess' vague idea on the centrifugal spread of the Altaid waves from a continental nucleus located somewhere in Siberia, took a clear form after his acquaintance with Tscherski's (Cherskiy) paper who suggested a similar model in 1886. Obruchev translated this paper for Suess and supplemented it with his own map explaining Tscherski's ideas. Friendly relationships between Obruchev and Suess facilitated a continuous flux of data and publications in both directions for the great benefit of Asiatic studies. Because of it Suess was aware about minor details of geologic features of Russia and China. Suess managed to learn Russian demonstration the aspiration that is almost totally missing among modern researches.

Besides the Altaid arcs and descriptions of almost all geologic structures in northern Asia and China, Suess borrowed from Russians the concept of disjunctive dislocations showing them by the most vivid color in his tectonic map. At the same time, Suess' adherence to orography in tectonic research did not allow him to pay due attention to Russian discoveries of disagreements between trends of folds and trends of mountain ranges, superimposed folding, mélange-type structures, etc and incorporate them in his synthesis.

When the third volume devoted to Asia was published, Suess was elected to the Russian Academy of Sciences. Nevertheless to the contrary to many other classic works of western geologists, Suess' writings were never translated into Russian for some unclear reasons. In 1930-1940's Suess name gradually disappeared from lists of references in Russian publications. Besides, misinterpretation and misunderstandings of Suess by proponents of the geosynclinal theory were also an important aspect of the oblivion of Suess' publication. Examples of these lapses are self-evident if one looks at the history of ideas on tectonics of the Siberian and Russian cratons. Misunderstanding of Suess' concept of the Ancient Vertex also contributed to the oblivion of the best concept of tectonic evolution of Asia.