The Lycian Taurides of southwest Anatolia, Turkey, are composed of a series of limestones, peridotites and lithic-rich clastic rocks. Their origin and subsequent tectonic evolution have been the subject of much controversy as the rocks form an integral part of the Tauride belt and provide a well exposed field laboratory for the study of both the opening and closure of Tethys. During this study, field observations of sedimentological, structural and lithological features of the rocks in southwest Anatolia have been combined with geochemical data derived from collected samples, to define a series of thrust- or unconformity-bounded tectonostratigraphic units. These units are: (i) the Lycian Autochthon, encompassing both the unmetamorphosed Lower Jurassic to Miocene rocks to the Bey Daglari Unit in the southeast and Pre-Cambrian to Eocene rocks of the Menderes Metamorphic Massif to the northwest: (ii) the Lycian Thrust Sheets, a series of Carboniferous to Middle Eocene neritic limestones, calci-clastics, turbidites and debris-flow deposits and lithic clastics and volcanics: (iii) the Lycian Mélange, with inclusions of neritic and pelagic limestone, basalts, serpentinite, red and black chert and amphibolite in a highly sheared silt and sandstone matrix: (iv) the Lycian Peridotite Thrust Sheet, a large (-4500km<SUP>2</SUP>) Cretaceous unit of serpentinized harzburgite with podiform chromitite and dunite bodies, cut by a series of dolerite dykes and underplated by an amphibolite-grade metamorphic sole: (v) supra-allochthon Palaeogene sediments that unconformably overlie the Lycian Mélange and Oligocene to Lower Miocene terrestrial and shallow-marine sediments of the Tavas Basin. The boundaries between these tectonostratigraphic units display a consistent top-to-the-southeast sense of shear. Therefore, the Lycian Allochthon is interpreted to have originated to the northwest of its present location, i.e. in the Ankara-Izmir Zone north of the Menderes Metamorphic Massif. Evidence for multiple phases of both opening and closure of the southern Tethys ocean were found with the Lycian Thrust Sheets. The earliest evidence of rifting in the region is within Permian rocks, this is manifest by the presence of basalts that have a similar trace-element chemistry to within-plate basalts and are coeval with a deepening event.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:643352 |
| Date | January 1997 |
| Creators | Collins, Alan Stephen |
| Publisher | University of Edinburgh |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://hdl.handle.net/1842/14632 |
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