Subduction Zone Configuration of Central and Eastern Anatolia since the Late Cretaceous: Insights from Sedimentary Basins in the Neotethyan Suture Zone

Abstract:

Subduction and accretion of continental and Neotethyan oceanic crustal fragments during Africa-Europe convergence since the Mesozoic formed the Anatolian fold-and-thrust belt. Sedimentary basins overlying key locations of the resulting fold-thrust belt that was metamorphosed to varying grades, may help to quantitatively kinematically restore the subduction evolution, and to identify timing, directions and amounts of post-accretionary extension, shortening and strike-slip faulting.

The Upper Cretaceous - Oligocene Ulukışla basin straddles ophiolites, underlain by the HT-LP metamorphic Kırşehir Block (KB) to its north, and the HP-LT Bolkardağ/Afyon zone (BA) to its south. At its southern margin a series of small-offset faults consistent with latest Cretaceous-Paleocene N-S extension, was contemporaneous with (presumably extensional) exhumation of BA. Close to the contact with KB, a series of large-offset listric normal faults compatible with E-W extension offsets sediments and the base of newly dated Paleocene volcanics, showing E-W extension simultaneous with N-S extension in the south, prevailing until at least 56 Ma. Subsequently, N-S directed contraction led to E-W striking folds and thrusts and back-thrusting of the BA over the Ulukisla basin, probably in Oligocene time, and coeval left lateral strike-slip motion along the Ecemiş fault (EF) at the eastern basin margin. We explain the interplay between two Late Cretaceous-Paleocene extension directions to result from interplay between N-S and E-W striking subduction segments in central and eastern Anatolia, respectively. The latter can be followed farther east towards the Bitlis. In addition, absence of a Kirsehir block in eastern Anatolia led to a much longer duration of subduction below the Pontides, throughout the Paleogene and perhaps until as young as the Middle Miocene, with a suture below the Sivas basin that covers the contact between the KB, the Pontides and the Taurides. We restore an amount of Cenozoic convergence across the Sivas basin at least equal to ~300 km shortening restored in Central Anatolia, 60-75 km displacement along the EF. Counter-clockwise Cenozoic rotation of the Taurides relative to the Pontides, documented paleomagnetically, may further increase this convergence with several hundreds of kilometers.