A Shadow from «Ten’-01»

Abstract

Petrographic, mineralogical and petrochemical studies of the Cretaceous sandstones and burnt rocks sampled from the surface of a small conical hill Ten’-01 were conducted. As a result, the conclusions made by A.V. Kostin with co-authors that the rocks they sampled in course of expedition work are the products of volcanic activity are proved to be unreasonable. The fact of the presence of a volcano in the region is not es- tablished and hence the relation between the conical hill Ten’-01 and this volcano is denied. It is substantiat- ed that the stone material studied in the works by A.V. Kostin and co-authors belongs to burnt rocks. It seems most likely that the burnt rocks were derived from the Cretaceous sandstones as a result of spontaneous com- bustion of underground coal beds in the region. To the east of the Ten’-01 hill, at 20 km from the Kangalas- sky coal deposit, in the Molotov Pad’ locality there is found one more occurrence of burnt rocks derived from the same Cretaceous sandstones as a result of combustion of the same coal beds. The habit of the rocks is identical in both cases.