Are turtleback fault surfaces common structural elements of highly extended terranes?

Abstract

The Death Valley region of the U.S.A. contains three topographic surfaces resembling the carapace of a turtle. These three surfaces are well exposed along the Black Mountain front and are named the Badwater, Copper Canyon, and Mormon Point Turtlebacks. It is widely accepted that the turtlebacks are also detachment surfaces that separate brittlely deformed Cenozoic volcanic and sedimentary rocks of the hanging wall from the strongly mylonitic, ductilely deformed pre-Cenozoic rocks of the footwall. We have found a turtleback-like detachment surface along the southern margin of the Alasehir (Gediz) Graben in western Anatolia, Turkey. This surface qualifies as a turtleback fault surface because it (a) is overall convex-upward and (b) separates brittlely deformed hanging wall Cenozoic sedimentary rocks from the ductilely to brittlely deformed, strongly mylonitic pre-Cenozoic footwall rocks. The surface, named here Horzum Turtleback, contains striations that overprint mylonitic stretching lineations indicating top to the NE sense of shear. This suggests that the northeasterly directed Cenozoic extension in the region resulted in a ductile deformation at depth and as the crust isostatically adjusted to the removal of the rocks in the hanging wall of the detachment fault, the ductilely deformed mylonitic rocks of the footwall were brought to shallower depths where they were brittlely deformed. The turtleback surfaces have been considered unique to the Death Valley region, although detachment surfaces, rollover folds, and other extensional structures have been well observed in other extended terranes of the world. The presence of a turtleback fault surface in western Anatolia, Turkey, suggests that the turtleback faults may be common structural features of highly extended terranes.