Compensation of Paleozoic orogens: a comparison of the Urals to the Appalachians

The Urals and Appalachians are two Paleozoic mountain belts with similar geologic and morphologic features. We combine geophysical (Bouguer gravity and deep seismic sounding) and geological observations from the Ural Mountains to test whether the surficial similarities of these Paleozoic orogens extend to include deep lithospheric structure and compensation mechanism. We find the combined data suggest support of the mountains by a stiff...