Now let us consider the subject from the point of view of surface alluvial plains. In a series of works published between 1930 and 1933, I presented an analysis of this problem. I described two belts of alluvial plains in the Northern Hemisphere: one at the boundaries of the Old World, near the edge of the continental glaciation, and the other around the latitudinal mountain belt at the 35th parallel. The plain belt associated with the mountain glaciations coincides generally with the part of Asia in which are located the rivers described by T. D. Reznichenko as having shifted channels and estuaries.
It was clear to me as early as the thirties that the formation of the alluvial plains in this belt was related to the rotation of the Earth. At that time I studied the Dnieper plain and certain other alluvial plains from the point of view of terrestrial rotation, and I related their genesis to von Baer's law. It appeared quite natural to me that, during the systematic shifting of the channel toward the right, enormous floodplains must have remained to the left of the channel, which during the evolution of the river system turned into terraced plains (that is, floodplains with different levels).
For some plains this is a valid explanation. However, according to von Baer, who worked out a complete formulation of his law during the course of some decades, there are actually two kinds of alluvial plains, which he called flussbetts and flusstals. The Dnieper Valley is a flusstal, and flusstals can be explained satisfactorily as shiftings to the right according to von Baer's law. Flussbetts, on the other hand, do not have a relation to von Baer's law. Most alluvial plains are of the flussbett type, and since they do not just develop to the right, but rather to both the left and the right of some basic position, there is reason to assume that they do not form ac cordint to von Baer's law. Von Baer did not discuss this, nor did I discuss it in my articles either. Now, however, after the observations of Reznichenko, I have definitely concluded that plains of this type could not have developed according to von Baer's law; they were also formed in relation to the rotation of the Earth, but by some other means. I advocate the above-mentioned idea of an "intermediate" tectonics which manifests itself in the north of the alluvial plains during warm periods and toward the south during cold periods. Tectonic phenomena of this type ensured an outflow for the water
supplying rivers, sometimes from one side of the flussbett and sometimes from the other side, as is the case from the Pripet Polessie, and for the valleys of the Mississippi, the Hwang Ho, and the Amu Darya. This is how I would explain the hydrology of channels of the flussbett type, since von Baer's law does not apply to them, although von Baer thought otherwise.
The positions of ancient latitudinal alluvial flussbetts are determined by the three zones of epeirogenic regions first designated by myself in 1927 and then definitely specified in 1934 (see the figure on p. 3 of Gerenchuk, 1958, and also my chart of epeirogenic movements in the European part of the USSR in Lichkov, 1927 and 1934). On the other hand, Gerenchuk found fault with my scheme (see pp. 17-18 of his work), and he stated that my explanation of "the most recent tectonic movements" for the Russian plain was given without a sufficient tectonic basis. He opposed my scheme on the basis of the ideas expressed by Mirchink (1933, 1936), according to which it is not the zonality of the movements which have taken place during a given epoch that determines their distribution, but rather all of the previous tectonic history of these movements.
However, it is not difficult to show that, in the western part of the territory shown on my chart (on the Volyn-Podol'sk plateau or the Lvov syncline), there is a large area where a new uplift has appeared, rather than something inherited from earlier periods, as in the other parts of the region. This uplift definitely verifies the indicated epeirogenic zonality in just the form indicated by me, and it enables us to indicate the consecutive distribution of artesian basins in this region. In particular, the flusstals described by Reznichenko coincide territorially with the artesian basins around the mountains, as is evident from my 1958 article.
The movements referred to here, it seems to me, were tectonic movements which appeared sometimes at the northern, and sometimes at the southern, edges of the artesian basins around the mountains. Such an interpretation gives the most accurate localization of these movements and assigns them a place in the pattern of symmetry of our planet.