Eyüboǧlu, Yener

High-K volcanics were produced in two different Late Cretaceous cycles during the infilling of back-arc basins of the eastern Pontides. The first cycle, represented by shoshonitic trachyandesites and associated pyroclastics, containing high K2O (2.74-4.81 wt-%) and NaK2O (3.60-5.51 wt-%), overlies a mid-Cretaceous ophiolitic-olistostromal melange formed during the rifting stage of a back-arc basin (Neotethys). 40Ar39Ar dating of biotite from trachyandesite at the base of the first cyle indicates that shoshonitic volcanism in the far south of the eastern Pontides started in the early Campanian. Volcanic rocks of this cycle are overlain by upper Campanian-Maastrichtian rudist-bearing reefal limestones. The second cycle of high-K volcanism is represented by analcime-bearing volcanic rocks erupted in a Neotethyan lagoonal environment. These volcanic rocks, intercalated with continental detritus, are characterized by high a2O (3.22-7.16 wt-%), now concentrated in secondary analcime crystals. Their K2O contents also range between 0.83 and 6.05 (wt-%). All of these units are disconformably overlain by Eocene turbidites with a basal conglomerate. Volcanic rocks belonging to both cycles show various enrichment degrees in LILE, HFSE, LREE, and HREE with respect to primitive mantle and chondrite [(La/Lu) cn=11.10-25.89]. Negative Nb, Ta, Zr, Hf, and Ti anomalies are typical of these subduction-related arc magmas. Geochemical similarities between the two volcanic cycles suggest that trachyandesites and analcime-bearing volcanics were derived from similar enriched mantle sources, and that they formed in the same geotectonic setting of a back-arc basin environment of the eastern Pontide magmatic arc during the Late Cretaceous. In addition, Nd-Sr and Pb isotope ratios of the investigated volcanic units indicate that their mantle melt sources were similar. The new geological, geochemical and isotopic data suggest that southward subduction of the Palaeotethyan oceanic crust can be separated into two main stages for the late Mesozoic Pontide orogenic belt. Early southward subduction ended by slab break-off during the mid-Cretaceous, resulting in upwelling and injection of asthenospheric mantle that caused the opening of the eastern Pontide back-arc basin (Neotethys). Resumption of southward subduction began with intense TH-CA bimodal volcanism in the northern front of the arc during the Turonian-Coniacian. The intensity of this Late Cretaceous magmatism in the north decreased towards the south, and a transition to monogenic calcalkaline-alkaline (CA-A) Campanian andesitic volcanism developed in the southern zone. Yet farther south, andesitic igneous activity graded into the Campanian-Maastrichtian shoshonitic and ultrapotassic volcanism in the Bayburt-Maden, Tokat, Amasya, and Gümüshaciköy areas. This zoning of the Late Cretaceous arc magmatism (TH-CA, CA-A and shoshonitic-ultrapotassic, from north to south) also supports the concept of southward subduction during late Mesozoic evolution of the eastern Mediterranean region.

Maden, Nafiz; Gelişli, Kenan; Eyüboǧlu, Yener; Bektaş, Osman

The Eastern Pontide orogenic belt is divided into three subzones (northern, southern and axial zones) based on present lithologies and facies associations. NE-SW-, NW-SE- and E-W-trending fault systems, which play an important role in palaeotectonics and neotectonics of the Eastern Pontides separate these zones. Three different methods were used to estimate the Moho depth from observed gravity value, namely (i) empirical relationship between Moho depth and Bouguer anomaly; (ii) spectral analysis of the radial wave number and; (iii) by the gravity inversion method. Power spectrum, a statistical approach, is a widely used technique to determine the depth of geological sources successfully. The empirical linear relations between the Bouguer anomalies and seismically determined crustal thicknesses have been used to compute depths to the Conrad and Moho discontinuities, which are consistent with the average depths obtained from the power spectrum method. The crustal structure was also determined from the inversion of a Bouguer anomaly profile along longitude 39°. Gravity inversion results are consistent with those obtained from the empirical relations and power spectrum methods. We calculated the maximum crustal thickness of 43.8 km in the studied region by using the gravity inversion method, which also showed that crustal thickness increases from north to south.

Bektaş, Osman; Eyüboǧlu, Yener; Maden, Nafiz

The dextral North Anatolian Fault System (NAFS) extends for well over 1000 km from the compressive tectonic domain of eastern Anatolia into the broad and diverse tectonic domain of the western Anatolian, Marmara and Aegean regions. These different tectonic regimes are characterized by a narrow deformation zone in the east and a much broader deformation zone with multiple sub-parallel fault zones in the west. The spatial and temporal distribution of large historical and modern earthquakes (Mw>5) shows two distinctive macro-seismic zones in the eastern and western parts of the NAFS. The eastern macro-seismic zone, between the towns of Erzincan and Bolu, has produced a successive linear earthquake series parallel to the fault system over the last 500 years, suggesting that stress transfer along the fault occurred in a manner of 'Static Coulomb failure stress changes' through the entire elastic crust. In contrast, the western macro-seismic zone of the NAFS, in the Marmara region, has produced successive earthquake pairs on the parallel faults, implying 'dynamic stress changes', involving large-scale flow in the aseismic lower crust and the mantle.

Eyüboǧlu, Yener; Bektaş, Osman; Şeren, Aysel; Maden, Nafiz; Özer, Rahşan; Jacoby, Wolfgang R.

The Eastern Pontide magmatic arc (NE Turkey) was rifted by the polyphase extensional tectonic regimes in the Early Jurassic. While alternated volcanics and siliciclastic sedimentary rocks accumulated during the episodic tectonic subsidences, thermal subsidence is manifested by sedimentation of the red pelagic limestones of the Ammonitico Rosso during the Pliensbachian. The trends of the Liassic basins extending in NW-SE, E-W, NE-SW directions coincide with the gravity and magnetic lineament anomalies and corresponding fault zones that are responsible for the paleotectonic and neotectonic evolutions of the Eastern Pontide magmatic arc. These mutual relationships suggest that the faults making up the architecture of the Liassic basins might have operated during the Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic times in different manners. Neptunian dikes, filled by the early rift siliciclastic and following fossiliferous red pelagic limestone implying the repeated extensional tectonic regimes, are also parallel to the main extensions of the Liassic basins. The poles of the contemporaneous neptunian dikes suggesting two or three extensional conjugate fracture systems are in accordance with the dip directions of the rift sediments accumulated in the same conjugate normal fault systems. Assuming that the Liassic basins with Ammonitico Rosso are coeval, multi-armed rift basins might have opened by the mode of the three-directional extension rather than reactivation of faults in the different times.