Miocene clastic sedimentation related to the emplacement of the Lycian Nappes and the Antalya Complex, S.W. Turkey

Abstract

Summary The western Tauride Mountains of S.W. Turkey comprise a central relatively autochthonous carbonate platform unit, the Tauride autochthon bordered by two allochthonous units, the Lycian Nappes to the west and the Antalya Complex to the east. Sequences of Miocene clastic sediments up to 1000 m thick that were derived from both the allochthons document the timing and direction of their emplacement onto the carbonate platform. Along the western margin of the Miocene basin intial emplacement of the Lycian Nappes, from the northwest, in the Lower Miocene, was coupled with rapid subsidence of the previously stable carbonate platform. The resulting basin was ca 170 km across. Fan-deltas were derived from the leading edge of the nappes and passed basinwards into a series of small submarine fans. At the same time rapid uplift of the central parts of the carbonate-platform, along the margin of the basin opposite the nappe pile, led to a thick wedge of carbonate-derived clastics being shed northwestwards into the basin. Varying sedimentation rates and migrating facies belts in the overlying Middle and Upper Miocene basin-fill document the progressive emplacement of the Lycian Nappes ca 100 km from the northwest over the basin margin. Along the eastern margin of the basin, palaeocurrent analysis and downslope facies-transitions in the Miocene sediments show that the Antalya Complex was emplaced from the east but only advanced a short distance beyond the eastern margin of the basin. The Lycian Nappes and the Antalya Complex approached the basin from opposite directions and so their respective ophiolite units must have originated in separate ocean basins on either side of the Bey Daḡlari and the Susuz Daḡ carbonate platform.

A Miocene onset of the modern extensional regime in the Isparta Angle: constraints from the Yalvaç Basin (southwest Turkey)

“…A history of Early to Middle Miocene NE-SW extension and NW-SE extension was recently documented in the Lycian Nappes to the west of the Aksu thrust (Alçiçek and ten Veen 2008;Alçiçek et al 2013). This history of extension, however, is synchronous with and occurs in the hanging wall of a top-to-the-southeast thrust that brings the Lycian nappes over the Bey Dağları platform (Hayward 1984;van Hinsbergen et al 2010a), likely as a result of gravitational sliding (van Hinsbergen 2010). This extension history is restricted to the Lycian nappes and did not affect the Bey Dağları foreland, or the Menderes hinterland, and in addition, the bulk of deformation is accomplished by15 Ma, i.e.…”

“…Dağları carbonate platform and is overthrusted from the NW by the Lycian Nappes, a composite nappe system of ophiolites and Mesozoic sediments that underwent its final emplacement over the Bey Dağları foreland in the Early Miocene (Hayward 1984;Okay 1989;Collins and Robertson 1997, 1998van Hinsbergen 2010). From the east, the Bey Dağları platform is also overthrust by ophiolite-and carbonate-dominated thrust sheets known as the Antalya Nappes.…”

“…From the east, the Bey Dağları platform is also overthrust by ophiolite-and carbonate-dominated thrust sheets known as the Antalya Nappes. The youngest thrusting at the contact with Bey Dağları-Western Taurides-occurred in the Early Miocene time (Hayward 1984) whilst Middle Miocene to Pliocene out-of-sequence thrusting in the Isparta Angle is dominated by the Aksu Thrust and the Kırkkavak strikeslip and normal-dominated fault (Dumont and Kerey 1975;Glover and Robertson 1998;Deynoux et al 2005;Flecker et al 2005;Çiner et al 2008;Schildgen et al 2012a) and their offshore equivalents in the Bay of Antalya (Hall et al 2014) (Fig. 1).…”

Exhumation with a twist: Paleomagnetic constraints on the evolution of the Menderes metamorphic core complex, western Turkey

“…The final emplacement of the Lycian Nappes over the Bey Dağları region in southwestern Turkey (Figure 2) occurred in the early Miocene. This episode of south or southeastward thrusting is marked by the formation of an Aquitanian to Burdigalian foreland basin [Poisson, 1977;Gutnic et al, 1979;Hayward and Robertson, 1982;Hayward, 1984aHayward, , 1984bKarabiyikoğlu et al, 2005]. Southward emplacement of the Lycian Nappes ceased at the end of the Burdigalian [Poisson, 1977;Flecker et al, 1995].…”

“…[59] The Lycian Nappes have previously been described as a megaklippe that traveled southward during the early Miocene [Hayward and Robertson, 1982;Hayward, 1984aHayward, , 1984bRobertson, 1998, 2003], contemporaneous with the exhumation of the NMM and SMM. During this period, the Lycian Nappes thrusted southward over the Bey Dağları platform, as evident from Aquitanian to lowermost Langhian foreland basin deposits at the leading southeastern edge of the Nappes, as well as from overthrusted Burdigalian foreland basin deposits in windows below them [Hayward, 1984a].…”