Late Miocene surface uplift of the southern margin of the Central Anatolian Plateau, Central Taurides, Turkey

2011 ◽  
Vol 124 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 133-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Cosentino ◽  
T. F. Schildgen ◽  
P. Cipollari ◽  
C. Faranda ◽  
E. Gliozzi ◽  
...  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Mulch ◽  
◽  
Maud J.M. Meijers ◽  
Maud J.M. Meijers ◽  
Gilles Y. Brocard ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maud J.M. Meijers ◽  
Gilles Y. Brocard ◽  
Ferhat Kaya ◽  
Cesur Pehlevan ◽  
Okşan Başoğlu ◽  
...  

<div> <p>The Central Anatolian Plateau (CAP, Turkey, elevation ca. 1-1.5 km) was established during the late Miocene. Prior to Pleistocene surface uplift of its southern margin (Tauride Mountains), a southern margin orographic barrier with similar-to-present elevations (ca. 2 km) existed between 8 and 5 Ma.</p> </div><div> <p>To unravel the interactions between tectonics and Earth surface processes, we quantify biotic and abiotic parameters for the late Miocene to Pliocene. As the CAP exposes presently incised fluvio-lacustrine sedimentary rocks of well-dated Miocene to Pliocene age, the region provides an excellent archive for reconstructing past landscape dynamics, such as surface uplift, lake hydrology, and drainage integration. Within this established framework, we now reconstruct the late Miocene to Pliocene ecosystem by measuring clumped isotope (Δ<sub>47</sub>) temperatures of carbonate formation and δ<sup>13</sup>C and δ<sup>18</sup>O values of paleosol carbonate and fossil mammal tooth enamel. Collectively, our data allow for the reconstruction of paleoclimate, vegetation types (C<sub>3</sub> vs. C<sub>4</sub>), mammalian diet, landscape heterogeneity, and seasonality.</p> </div><div> <p>The first clumped isotope-derived paleotemperatures indicate a large (8 <span>°</span>C) temperature difference at ca. 5.5 Ma between lacustrine carbonate from the Mediterranean coastal region (Adana Basin; ca. 26 ± 1.8 <span>°</span>C) and paleosol carbonate from the central Anatolian interior (ca. 18 ± 1.7 <span>°</span>C), which likely reflects the higher elevation of the CAP. Soil carbonate δ<sup>13</sup>C values from the plateau interior (13 sites, N= 344, ca. 10 to 2 Ma) are much higher between ca. 8 and 5 Ma (ca. –3 to 0 ‰) than earlier or later in time (ca. –8 to –5 ‰), which indicates the presence of a significant component of C<sub>4</sub> vegetation, characterized by wooded grasslands and grasslands, during the latest Miocene. In contrast, C<sub>3</sub>-dominated vegetation reflecting more wooded environments were dominant at ca. 10 Ma and from 4 to 2 Ma. The increase in C<sub>4</sub> vegetation during the late Miocene is coeval with surface uplift of the southern CAP margin, whereas an increase of C<sub>3</sub> vegetation by the Pliocene could coincide with a phase of subsidence of the southern CAP margin prior to its final phase of Pleistocene surface uplift. Furthermore, we collected mammal tooth enamel samples (equid, bovid, rhinocerotid, suid) from 11 individuals at one ca. 9 Ma-old and one latest Miocene-Pliocene<span> fossil site. </span>δ<sup>13</sup>C and δ<sup>18</sup>O values indicate the mammals at the two nearby fossil sites had varying diets and therefore access to different vegetation and water supplies. We are currently improving the stratigraphic framework and dating of these fossil sites, as well as obtaining tooth enamel δ<sup>13</sup>C and δ<sup>18</sup>O values of 44 more individuals to further constrain paleoenvironmental conditions and eventually the causality between tectonics and Earth surface processes in central Anatolia.</p> </div><div> <p><span>References:</span><strong><span> </span></strong><span>Meijers et al., 2018a: Palaeo3, doi: 10.1016/j.palaeo.2018.03.001; Meijers et al., 2018b: EPSL, doi: 10.1016/j.epsl.2018.05.040; Huang, Meijers et al., 2019: J of Biogeography, doi: 10.1111/jbi.13622; Meijers et al., 2020: Geosphere, doi: 10.1130/GES02135.1</span></p> </div>


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Fernández-Blanco

Orogenic plateaus have raised abundant attention amongst geoscientists during the last decades, offering unique opportunities to better understand the relationships between tectonics and climate, and their expression on the Earth’s surface.Orogenic plateau margins are key areas for understanding the mechanisms behind plateau (de)formation. Plateau margins are transitional areas between domains with contrasting relief and characteristics; the roughly flat elevated plateau interior, often with internally drained endorheic basins, and the external steep areas, deeply incised by high-discharge rivers. This thesis uses a wide range of structural and tectonic approaches to investigate the evolution of the southern margin of the Central Anatolian Plateau (CAP), studying an area between the plateau interior and the Cyprus arc. Several findings are presented here that constrain the evolution, timing and possible causes behind the development of this area, and thus that of the CAP. After peneplanation of the regional orogeny, abroad regional subsidence took place in Miocene times in the absence of major extensional faults, which led to the formation of a large basin in the northeast Mediterranean. Late Tortonian and younger contractional structures developed in the interior of the plateau, in its margin and offshore, and forced the inversion tectonics that fragmented the early Miocene basin into the different present-day domains. The tectonic evolution of the southern margin of the CAP can be explained based on the initiation of subduction in south Cyprus and subsequent thermo-mechanical behavior of this subduction zone and the evolving rheology of the Anatolian plate. The Cyprus slab retreat and posterior pull drove subsidence first by relatively minor stretching of the crust and then by its flexure. The growth by accretion and thickening of the upper plate, and that of the associated forearc basins system, caused by accreting sediments, led to rheological changes at the base of the crust that allowed thermal weakening, viscous deformation, driving subsequent surface uplift and raising the modern Taurus Mountains. This mechanism could be responsible for the uplifted plateau-like areas seen in other accretionary margins. ISBN: 978-90-9028673-0


2018 ◽  
Vol 497 ◽  
pp. 29-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maud J.M. Meijers ◽  
Gilles Y. Brocard ◽  
Michael A. Cosca ◽  
Tina Lüdecke ◽  
Christian Teyssier ◽  
...  

Geosphere ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 490-509
Author(s):  
Maud J.M. Meijers ◽  
Gilles Y. Brocard ◽  
Donna L. Whitney ◽  
Andreas Mulch

Abstract Continued Africa-Eurasia convergence resulted in post–11 Ma surface uplift of the Central Anatolian Plateau (CAP) and the westward escape of the Anatolian microplate. Contemporaneously, a central Anatolian fluvio-lacustrine system developed that covered extensive parts of the rising CAP. Today, the semi-arid CAP interior—except for the Konya closed catchment—drains toward the Black Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Persian Gulf. Lake connectivity and drainage patterns of the fluvio-lacustrine system in the evolving plateau region are, however, largely unknown. Here, we present sedimentological and stable isotopic (δ13C and δ18O) data (N = 665) from 13 well-dated lake sections covering the former fluvio-lacustrine depocenters of the southern CAP. Persistently (>1 m.y.) stable paleoenvironmental and hydrological conditions suggest that a low-relief environment characterized the southern CAP during plateau uplift. Throughout the late Miocene, various open and closed lakes of the southern CAP drained into closed, terminal lakes within the plateau interior. Sedimentation east of the Tuz Gölü fault ceased during the early Pliocene (ca. 5.3–3.6 Ma), when the eastern CAP became connected to marine base level as a result of river incision shortly after the switch from regional compression to extension. A final phase of lacustrine carbonate sedimentation characterizes most sampled basins, yet occurred asynchronously over the extent of the CAP. Therefore, the final episode of lacustrine sedimentation is unlikely to have been the result of a climatic event, consistent with the absence of a clear aridification trend in the lacustrine δ18O data. Rather, capping carbonates reflect the interplay of surface uplift and transition from inward- to outward-drained plateau regions and concomitant lake reorganization during the formation of the CAP and its margins.


2018 ◽  
Vol 137 (3) ◽  
pp. 425-464 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nazik Öğretmen ◽  
Virgilio Frezza ◽  
Natália Hudáčková ◽  
Elsa Gliozzi ◽  
Paola Cipollari ◽  
...  

Geology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (10) ◽  
pp. 943-947 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.R. Reid ◽  
J.R. Delph ◽  
M.A. Cosca ◽  
W.K. Schleiffarth ◽  
G. Gençalioğlu Kuşcu

Abstract A co-investigation of mantle melting conditions and seismic structure revealed an evolutionary record of mantle dynamics accompanying the transition from subduction to collision along the Africa-Eurasia margin and the >1 km uplift of the Anatolian Plateau. New 40Ar/39Ar dates of volcanic rocks from the Eastern Taurides (southeast Turkey) considerably expand the known spatial extent of Miocene-aged mafic volcanism following a magmatic lull over much of Anatolia that ended at ca. 20 Ma. Mantle equilibration depths for these chemically diverse basalts are interpreted to indicate that early to middle Miocene lithospheric thickness in the region varied from ∼50 km or less near the Bitlis suture zone to ∼80 km near the Inner Tauride suture zone. This southward-tapering lithospheric base could be a vestige of the former interface between the subducted (and now detached) portion of the Arabian plate and the overriding Eurasian plate, and/or a reflection of mantle weakening associated with greater mantle hydration trenchward prior to collision. Asthenospheric upwelling driven by slab tearing and foundering along this former interface, possibly accompanied by convective removal of the lithosphere, could have led to renewed volcanic activity after 20 Ma. Melt equilibration depths for late Miocene and Pliocene basalts together with seismic imaging of the present lithosphere indicate that relatively invariant lithospheric thicknesses of 60–70 km have persisted since the middle Miocene. Thus, no evidence is found for large-scale (tens of kilometers) Miocene delamination of the lower lithosphere from the overriding plate, which has been proposed elsewhere to account for late Miocene and younger uplift of Anatolia.


2015 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 370-395 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. A. Bermúdez ◽  
C. Hoorn ◽  
M. Bernet ◽  
E. Carrillo ◽  
P. A. van der Beek ◽  
...  

2010 ◽  
Vol 494 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 48-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.C. Montero Lopez ◽  
Fernando D. Hongn ◽  
Manfred R. Strecker ◽  
Randall Marrett ◽  
Raúl Seggiaro ◽  
...  

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