Late Ordovician glaciation in southern Turkey

Abstract

We present a new survey of several Palaeozoic sections in both the Taurus range and the Border Folds that documents typical glacial features including a glacial pavement and striated dropstones (Halevikdere Formation) and demonstrates the former presence of an ice sheet in southern and south-eastern Turkey. Evidence for the late Ashgill (Hirnantian) age of this episode is provided by macro- and microfossils found within the glacial formation. The extension of ice-related deposits into the northernmost part of the Arabian Platform (Mardin region) implies a much wider distribution of the Ordovician ice sheet than was previously believed, and strongly suggests that southern Turkey lay close to Egypt during the Lower Palaeozoic

The birth of the Rheic Ocean — Early Palaeozoic subsidence patterns and subsequent tectonic plate scenarios

“…Hamoumi 1999;Monod et al, 2003) and, consequently, the future terranes building up Pangea were still located at rather high southern longitudes. The contemporaneous thermal expansion could explain local unconformities or sedimentary gaps, and the rift shoulders may have been the site of ice sheets (e.g.…”

Late Ordovician-earliest Silurian palynomorphs from northern Chad and correlation with contemporaneous deposits of southeastern Libya

“…During the Late Ordovician, in northern Chad and in southeast Libya, the palaeogeographical, and palaeoenvironmental situations were fairly close to those of southeastern Mauritania (e.g., Nseirat section, Hodh region, Paris et al 1998). Both areas were located in a proximal position with regard to the Hirnantian inlandsis, and were temporary covered by the ice cap (see Ghienne 2003 andMonod et al 2003 for references). They registered a marine sedimentation overlaying glacial and /or glacio-marine diamicites.…”

Comments on “Deformation of the Lower Cambrian Sequence in the Sandikli Region (Afyon), central Turkey” by T. Güngör

“…More and less complete Late Neoproterozoic -Early Palaeozoic rocks within Tauride units are best exposed in the Geyikdağ unit of Özgül [16]. A chard with several cross-sections in previous studies [3,7,8,14,17,18,19,20] of this interval is given in Fig. 1 to correlate with the stratigraphic section presented by Güngör [1].…”