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The chronology of evolution of the young explosive volcanism in the Elbrus area of the Greater Caucasus is revealed. The isotopic-geochronological data indicate that ignimbrites and associated volcanic rocks were formed during the Middle Pliocene (3.0–2.75 Ma) and Early Pleistocene (0.84–0.70 Ma) stages of magmatic activity of the Greater Caucasus. The presence of two groups of pyroclastic rocks significantly different in age and analysis of their location indicate two spatially combined volcanic centers different in age in this part of the Elbrus volcanic area: Pliocene Tyrnyauz center localized in the eastern and southern parts and Quaternary Elbrus volcanic center which is the only newest center of volcanic activity both in the Elbrus and in the entire neovolcanic area. The analysis of chronology of magmatic events and compositional peculiarities of the young igneous rocks of the Elbrus area for the period from 3 Ma to the Holocene shows that the caldera stage of the evolution of the Elbrus Volcano has not come yet and future catastrophic magmatism is highly possible.

New isotope-geochronological data (K-Ar, Rb-Sr) provide tight geochronological constraints on the history of Late Cenozoic magmatism on the southern slope of the Greater Caucasus. Several previously unknown, rhyodacite intrusive bodies with an emplacement age of 6.9 ± 0.3 Ma (Late Miocene) are reported from the Kakheti-Lechkhumi regional fault zone in the Kvemo Svaneti-Racha area. Therefore, a pulse of acid intrusive magmatism took place in a period previously considered amagmatic in the Greater Caucasus. The petrological, geochemical, and isotopic data suggest that these rhyodacites are produced by crystallization differentiation of mantle-derived magmas, which are similar in composition to Miocene mafic lavas that erupted a few hundred thousand years later in the adjacent Central Georgian neovolcanic area. The presented results allow the conclusion that the volcanic activity within the Central Georgian neovolcanic area occurred at 7.2–6.0 Ma in two discrete pulses: (1) the emplacement of acid intrusions and (2) the eruption of trachybasaltic lavas. The emplacement of rhyodacite intrusions in the Kvemo Svaneti-Racha area marked the first pulse of young magmatism on the southern slope of the Main Caucasus range and simultaneously represented the second magmatic pulse (after granitoid magmatism of the Caucasian Mineral Waters region) within the entire Greater Caucasus.

The intrusive rocks associated with the large Nezhdaninka gold deposit (Au > 470 t) hosted in the Permian carbonaceous terrigenous sequence have been dated on zircon and rock-forming minerals with precision U-Pb (ID-TIMS) and Rb-Sr methods. The lamprophyre of the dike complex that occurs in the ore field and spatially is related to gold mineralization has concordant U-Pb zircon age (121 ± 1 Ma) and the same isochron Rb-Sr age (121.0 ± 2.8 Ma). The concordant U-Pb zircon age of granodiorite that dominates in the Kurum pluton is 94 ± 1 Ma, whereas the Rb-Sr isochron age of various intrusive rocks from this pluton is 1–4 Ma younger. This difference is caused by long-term cooling of the Kurum pluton and later closure of Rb-Sr isotopic system of biotite (300–350°C) and other rock-forming minerals as compared with U-Pb isotopic system of zircon (∼ 900°C). The Rb-Sr age of quartz diorite from the Gel’dy group of stocks (92.6 ± 0.8 Ma) coincides within uncertainty limits with the age of the Kurum pluton. Thus, the rocks pertaining to two epochs of magmatic activity, which developed in the South Verkhoyansk Foldbelt and divided by a time span of 25–28 Ma, are documented in the Nezhdaninka ore field. Taking into account that the age of gold mineralization is no less than 120 Ma, the data obtained allow us to specify the previously proposed formation model of the Nezhdaninka deposit. These data give grounds to rule out the Late Cretaceous Kurum pluton and the Gel’dy group of stocks from constituents of the ore-magmatic system, and to suggest that an Early Cretaceous deep-seated magma source existed beneath the deposit. Along with host terrigenous rocks, this magma source participated in the supply of matter to the hydrothermal system. The Nd, Sr, and Pb isotopic systematics of igneous rocks and ore mineralization in the Nezhdaninka ore field show that the Early and Late Cretaceous magma sources were formed in the Precambrian crust dated at ∼1.8 Ga.

The paper reports Rb-Sr isotopic data obtained by the authors on ore-hosting rocks from the Kairagach epithermal Au-Ag deposit in the Kurama ore district in the Central Tien Shan, Uzbekistan. The influence of mineralizing hydrothermal solutions on the host volcanic rocks of andesite-dacite composition and the metasomatic alterations of these rocks are proved to have been resulted in with the homogenization of the Sr isotopic composition, i.e., its equalization between various modes of Sr occurrence. This offers additional possibilities of the application of the Rb-Sr isochron method in dating hydrothermal processes. The application of Rb-Sr isotopic methods in studying samples from the Kairagach deposit allowed the authors to obtain dates whose reliability corresponds to isochron one (291 ± 3 Ma) or is very close to it (290 ± 6 Ma). The data thus obtained provide good reasons to believe that the corresponding epithermal mineral deposits in the Kurama ore district (Kairagach, Kochbulak, and others) were genetically related to and simultaneous with the emplacement subvolcanic porphyry intrusions.

An isotopic geochronological study of Russia’s largest Strel’tsovka uranium district has been carried out. Polychronous granite generation, which determined the structure of the pre-Mesozoic basement, had important implications for the formation of volcanotectonic structural elements bearing economic uranium mineralization. The study of U-Pb, Rb-Sr, and Sm-Nd isotopic systems of whole-rock samples and minerals of granitic rocks allowed us to estimate the deportment of these systems in spatially conjugated granite-forming and hydrothermal processes differing in age and gave grounds for revising the age of granites pertaining to the Urulyungui Complex and refining the age of the Unda Complex.

Complex geochronological and isotope-geochemical studies showed that the Late Quaternary Elbrus volcano (Greater Caucasus) experienced long (approximately 200 ka) discrete evolution, with protracted periods of igneous quiescence (approximately 50 ka) between large-scale eruptions. The volcanic activity of Elbrus is subdivided into three phases: MiddleNeopleistocene (225–170 ka), Late Neopleistocene (110–70 ka), and Late Neopleistocene-Holocene (less than 35 ka).

This paper reports an integrated petrological, geochronological, and isotopic geochemical study of the Pliocene Dzhimara granitoid massif (Greater Caucasus) located in the immediate vicinity of Quaternary Kazbek Volcano. Based on the obtained results, it was suggested that the massif has a multiphase origin, and temporal variations in the chemical composition of its granitoids and their possible sources were determined. Two petrographic types of granitoids, biotite-amphibole and amphibole, were distinguished among the studied rocks of the Dzhimara Massif belonging to the calc-alkaline and K-Na subalkaline petrochemical series. The latter are granodiorites, and the biotite-amphibole granitoids are represented by calc-alkaline granodiorites and quartz diorites and subalkaline quartz diorites. Geochemically, the granitoids of the Dzhimara Massif are of a “mixed” type, showing signatures of S-, I-, A-, and even M-type rocks. Their chemical characteristics suggest a mantle-crustal origin, which is explained by the formation of their parental magmas in a complex geodynamic environment of continental collision associated with a mantle “hot field” regime.

The isotopic (δD, δ18O, δ13C, and 87Sr/86Sr) and geochemical characteristics of hydrothermal solutions from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the material of brucite-carbonate chimneys at the Lost City hydrothermal field at 30°N, MAR, were examined to assay the role of the major factors controlling the genesis of the fluid and hydrothermal chimneys of the Lost City field. The values of δD and δ18O in fluid samples indicates that solutions at the Lost City field were produced during the serpentinization of basement ultramafic rocks at temperatures higher than 200°C and at relatively low fluid/rock ratios (