International audienceThe Turkish part of the Tethyan realm is represented by a series of terranes juxtaposed through Alpine convergent movements and separated by complex suture zones. Different terranes can be defined and characterized by their dominant geological background. The Pontides domain represents a segment of the former active margin of Eurasia, where back-arc basins opened in the Triassic and separated the Sakarya terrane from neighbouring regions. Sakarya was re-accreted to Laurasia through the Balkanic mid-Cretaceous orogenic event that also affected the Rhodope and Strandja zones. The whole region from the Balkans to the Caucasus was then affected by a reversal of subduction and creation of a Late Cretaceous arc before collision with the Anatolian domain in the Eocene. If the Anatolian terrane underwent an evolution similar to Sakarya during the Late Paleozoic and Early Triassic times, both terranes had a diverging history during and after the Eo-Cimmerian collision. North of Sakarya, the Küre back-arc was closed during the Jurassic, whereas north of the Anatolian domain, the back-arc type oceans did not close before the Late Cretaceous. During the Cretaceous, both domains were affected by ophiolite obduction, but in very different ways: north directed diachronous Middle to Late Cretaceous mélange obduction on the Jurassic Sakarya passive margin; Senonian synchronous southward obduction on the Triassic passive margin of Anatolia. From this, it appears that the Izmir-Ankara suture, currently separating both terranes, is composite, and that the passive margin of Sakarya is not the conjugate margin of Anatolia. To the south, the Cimmerian Taurus domain together with the Beydağları domain (part of the larger Greater Apulian terrane), were detached from north Gondwana in the Permian during the opening of the Neotethys (East-Mediterranean basin). The drifting Cimmerian blocks entered into a soft collision with the Anatolian and related terranes in the Eo-Cimmerian orogenic phase (Late Triassic), thus suturing the Paleotethys. At that time, the Taurus plate developed foreland-type basins, filled with flysch-molasse deposits that locally overstepped the lower plate Taurus terrane and were deposited in the opening Neotethys to the south. These olistostromal deposits are characterized by pelagic Carboniferous and Permian material from the Paleotethys suture zone found in the Mersin mélange. The latter, as well as the Antalya and Mamonia domains are represented by a series of exotic units now found south of the main Taurus range. Part of the Mersin exotic material was clearly derived from the former north Anatolian passive margin (Huğlu-type series) and re-displaced during the Paleogene. This led us to propose a plate tectonic model where the Anatolian ophiolitic front is linked up with the Samail/Baër-Bassit obduction front found along the Arabian margin. The obduction front was indented by the Anatolian promontory whose eastern end was partially subducted. Continued slab roll-back of the Neotethys allowed A...
The Aegean region experienced back-are extension related to the Hellenic subduction system at least from the latest Oligocene to the present. We document Tertiary extension-related kinematics in the north Aegean, in the eastern Rhodope-Thrace of Bulgaria-Greece and the Biga Peninsula of NW Turkey. A regionally consistent NNE-SSW-to NE-SW-oriented kinematic direction, delineated in both areas by stretching lineations and associated ductile-brittle shear fabrics in exhumed metamorphic domes beneath detachments, suggests that they were kinematically coupled during the Tertiary extension. This kinematic framework, combined with regional geochronological data and the stratigraphic record in hanging-wall supradetachment basins, defines an extensional history that includes syn-and post-orogenic episodes from Paleocene to Miocene times. Paleocene-early Eocene synorogenic extension in the Kemer micaschists of the northern Biga Peninsula and in the Kesebir-Kardamos dome in Rhodope-Thrace accommodated gravitationally induced hinterland-directed exhumation of the orogenic stack, coeval with the closure of the Vardar Ocean. Then, following collision within the region, it was succeeded by latest Oligocene-Early Miocene extension as recorded in the Kazdaǧ Massif in the southern Biga Peninsula, which overlaps the Aegean back-arc post-orogenic extension, widely recognized in the central Aegean and southern Greek Rhodope. The protracted record of extension is interpreted to reflect progressive exhumation of the orogenic wedge along the Eurasian plate margin. Southward migration of extension and magmatism across the study areas accounts for sequential shift and roll-back of the subduction boundary at that margin, from the latest Cretaceous in the Rhodope to its present position at the Hellenic trench. The results allow recognition of the investigated areas as an important extensional domain in the north Aegean region, which underwent Tertiary syn-and post-orogenic extension.
Western Turkey is a place of active continental extension, characterized by the occurrence of several WNW-ESE-trending major grabens. The central part of the northern edge of the Edremit Graben is delineated by various geological units, namely the metamorphic Kazda… Massif, the Mid-Cretaceous Çetmi mélange, the sedimentary Küçükkuyu formation, and loose Plio-Quaternary deposits. Detailed structural and sedimentological study suggests a two-stage extensional evolution of the area, separated by a short break in the tectonic regime. The first stage, possibly related to back-arc extension and/or orogenic collapse, is marked by the activity of a newly described low-angle detachment fault, the ¥elale detachment fault, from the latest Oligocene onward. The fault plane, separating the mylonitized rocks of the Kazda… Massif in the footwall from the unmetamorphosed Çetmi mélange and Küçükkuyu formation in the hanging wall, must have played a significant role in the initial exhumation processes of the Kazda… Massif at that time. The Lower Miocene syntectonic Küçükkuyu formation has recorded the initiation and filling up of a small basin, which has developed in a typical supra-detachment basin, above the detachment fault. After a short phase of possible compression and erosion, the second stage-which marks the onset of neotectonic activity-is marked by the development of Plio-Quaternary step-like normal faults, which cut through all the previous units. Coarse, loose sediments were deposited following the fault activity. These local results are extrapolated to apply to the entire Edremit Graben. In that case, its evolution is seen as the succession of two extensional stages, characterized by distinct structural and sedimentological patterns, and possibly separated by a short compressional phase.
The Carboniferous to Permian volcanic-sedimentary succession shown by the LY-F core from the Lucenay-lès-Aix area, in the northern part of the Massif Central, has been studied in order to obtain both landscape reconstructions (sedimentological analyses) and geochronological constraints (U-Pb dating on zircon and apatite). The lowermost part
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