A new intracontinental transcurrent structure: the Central Anatolian Fault Zone, Turkey

Abstract

Recent neotectonic studies, including remote-sensing, aerial photographs, geological field mapping on various scales and measured stratigraphic section substantiate the existence of a large sinistral intracontinental transcurrent structure, which we call the Central Anatolian Fault Zone (CAFZ). This is an approximately 730-km-long, 2-km- to 80-km-wide, NE-trending, active sinistral strike-slip fault zone that cuts across the Anatolian plateau between Düzyayla in the northeast and Anamur County in the southwest. It continues onward beneath the Eastern Mediterranean Sea and determines the boundary of the Antalya and Adana basins as far as to the west of Cyprus. The CAFZ is a very young neotectonic structure. It resulted from the reactivation and propagation of an older paleotectonic structure, the so-called ‘Ecemis̡ Corridor’, in both NNE and SW directions across the Inner Tauride Suture in the Plio-Quaternary times. Based on geometric discontinuities, the CAFZ is divided into 24 segments. Each of them is characterized by a number of strike-slip morphotectonic features reflecting recent motions. The easternmost part of the Anatolian Platelet is being deformed internally by several dextral to sinistral intraplate strike-slip faults. These are the Lake Salt Fault Zone (LSFZ), the Salanda Fault (SF), the CAFZ, the Göksu-Yazyurdu Fault Zone (GYFZ) and the Malatya-Ovacik Fault Zone (MOFZ). They take up lesser motion and are younger than boundary faults of the Anatolian Platelet. The GYFZ and MOFZ splay from the NATF, cut across the Anatolian Platelet and then meet to the EATF. Whereas, other faults are confined into the Anatolian Platelet and seem to be independent structures. However, present-day structural pattern of all these intraplate faults and boundary faults of the Anatolian Platelet indicates a regional strain pattern of NNW-SSE-directed shortening and ENE-WSW-directed extension, and they seem to have developed to accommodate northward motion of the Arabian Plate since late Early Pliocene times.