View article

The outcropping geology of the southern Urals contains a well‐preserved accretionary complex related to the Paleozoic collision that took place between the Magnitogorsk arc and the former East European Craton. The crustal‐scale structure of the accretionary complex has been determined from outcropping field geology that is integrated with three reflection seismic profiles. The reflection profiles show the accretionary complex to be highly reflective, allowing direct comparison of many reflections with surface geological features. We interpret the accretionary complex to be a thrust stack that is composed of shallowly subducted continental shelf and rise material, syncollisional sediments derived from the arc, deeply subducted high‐pressure gneisses that are intercalated with eclogites and blueschist, and, at the highest structural level, ophiolite complexes. It is bound at the base by a thrust and at the rear by a highly …