В книге представлены основы теплофизического моделирования, а также результаты теплофизического моделирования, полученные авторами, и их геодинамические приложения; динамика процессов, протекающих в тектоносфере, с учетом геофизических и петрологических данных и, как следствие, новые постановки задач в области геодинамики.

В монографии коллектива авторов на основе новейших данных по геологии и петрологии магматических горных пород рассмотрены главные особенности эволюции тектоно-магматических процессов в истории Земли. Особое внимание уделялось Восточно-Европейскому кратону, на примере которого разработаны геодинамические модели для архея, протерозоя и палеозоя. Обсуждены рубежи и характер переходов от ранней плюмовой тектоники к сложным формам взаимодействия плюмов и листосферных плит, а также сопутствующие изменения сотава мантийных субстратов. Кайнозойский магматизм охарактеризован на примере действующих вулканов Камчатки и новейших вулканических построек Большого Кавказа. Особый интерес для разработки современной теории развития планет земной группы представляют данные сравнительного анализа эволюции магматизма Земли и Луны. Главным итогом исследования является установление направленности и необратимости магматических процессов на Земле. 

Для широкого круга геологов, петрологов и геохимиков, а также преподавателей и студентов ВУЗов

Although plate tectonics and mantle plumes were introduced to geology at the same time in the 1960s and early 1970s by J. Tuzo Wilson and Jason Morgan, unlike plate tectonics, which rapidly collected supporters from the Earth S c i e n c e community, mantle plumes took a back seat. Yes, Hawaii was an example of a mantle plume and as oceanic plates moved over plumes they leave hotspot tracks. The prevailing attitude was one of "this is fine, but let's now move on to plate tectonics where the real excitement is." For twenty years geoscientists focussed most of their efforts on trying to understand plate tectonics and document examples of it in the g e o l o g i c record. It w a s not until the late 1980s that scientists turned some of their attention to mantle plumes, and indeed during the 1990s, when mantle plumes really "became of age", publications dealing with mantle plumes increased exponentially. Why the long period of dormancy for mantle plumes? I believe it was simply because geoscientists were overwhelmed by plate tectonics-a band wagon effect that influenced all of the Earth Sciences.

In the Late Cambrian-Ordovician, Gondwana-derived microcontinents such as Kokchetav, Altai-Mongolian, Tuva-Mongolian, and Barguzin, as well as the Kazakhstan-Tuva-Mongolian island arc or a system of island arcs were involved in intense accretion-collision processes in similar geodynamic settings on a vast territory of Central Asia — from West Kazakhstan to Lake Baikal. The processes were likely to be the result of a large rebuilding of the Earth’s crust possibly related to the increased mantle impact on the lithosphere as they were simultaneous to the opening of the Uralian and Mongolian-Okhotsk (Turkestan) Oceans. The 970–850 Ma breakup of Rodinia and the 760–700 Ma important tectonic events were followed by the Late Cambrian-Early Ordovician plume magmatism impulse at 500–480 Ma, which led to the opening of new oceans and accelerated the accretion of the Gondwana-derived blocks to the island arc and subsequent formation of an extended — more than 6000 km long — Kazakhstan-Baikal orogenic belt.

The principal results of project 440 “Assembly and Breakup of Rodinia” of the International Geological Correlation Programme (IGCP) are reviewed in this work. A map of that supercontinent compiled using geological and paleomagnetic data describes global paleogeography 900 Ma ago. The assembly of Rodinia, which comprised most of Precambrian continental blocks, lasted ca. 400 m.y. (from 1300 to 900 Ma). Its breakup presumably triggered by mantle superplume took place between 830 and 650 Ma. The correlation between tectonic events in different continental blocks is considered. Some problems concerning the Rodinia reconstruction and history, e.g., the slow growth of juvenile crust and effects of mantle-plume events during the amalgamation period and of glaciations at the breakup time, are discussed. The latter caused changes in the biosphere and climate, whereas postglacial periods stimulated progress in biota evolution