Neotethys Closure History of Western Anatolia ' A Geodynamic Review
Abstract
During the last decade, numerous tectonic models were proposed for the closure of the Neotethys Ocean in Western Anatolia that led to the collision of the Anatolide-Tauride and the Pontide continents during the Palaeogene. These models disagree on some fundamental aspects as the pre-subduction palaeogeography (from one to multiple oceanic strands), number of contemporaneous subduction zones (from one to three), and post-collision slab dynamics (frontal break-off, roll-back, tearing). We compiled, reviewed the most recent of these tectonic models, and pinpointed fundamental controversies that we tentatively resolved based on a multi-disciplinary constraints. Among our favoured interpretations, the Neotethys closure features the collision of two continental domains (Tavşanlı-Afyon, and Menderes-Tauride micro-continents) and the successive consumption of two oceanic domains during the continuous subduction of a single lithospheric slab from ~95 Ma to ~40 Ma. Although frontal break-off during the Eocene cannot be univocally excluded, we suggest that the rupture of this slab intervened only during the Miocene, as a tear fault along the highly curved eastern limb of the Hellenic slab. Besides, other aspects such as the timing and locus of subduction initiation, and the transition from subduction- to collision-related tectonics remain ambiguous and should trigger further investigations, especially of the sub-ophiolitic metamorphic soles and the metamorphic evolution of the Menderes Massif.
- Publication:
-
EGU General Assembly Conference Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- April 2015
- Bibcode:
- 2015EGUGA..17.6271P