Facies and environmental setting of the Miocene coral reefs in the late-orogenic fill of the Antalya Basin, western Taurides, Turkey: implications for tectonic control and sea-level changes

Abstract

Facies and environmental setting of the Miocene coral reefs in the Late Cenozoic Antalya Basin are studied to contribute towards a better understanding of the time and space relationships of the reef development and the associated basin fill evolution in a tectonically active basin. The Antalya Basin is an extention–compression-related late post-orogenic basin that developed unconformably on a basement comprising a Mesozoic para-authocthonous carbonate platform overthrust by the Antalya Nappes and Alanya Massif metamorphics within the Isparta angle. The Late Cenozoic basin fill consists of thick Miocene to Recent clastic-dominated terrestrial and marine deposits with subordinate marine carbonates and extensive travertines. Late Miocene compressional deformation has resulted into three parts, referred as Aksu, Köprüçay and Manavgat sub-basins, bounded by north–south extending dextral Kırkkavak fault and the westward-verging Aksu thrust. Coralgal reefs are common within the Miocene sequences and are represented by coral assemblages closely similar to that of the circum-Mediterranean fauna. They occur as massive, small, isolated, patch reefs that developed in two contrasting depositional systems (progradational coastal alluvial fan and/or fan-delta conglomerates and transgressive shelf carbonates) during Early–Middle Miocene and Late Miocene. The Early–Middle Miocene reefs are represented by rich and high-diversity hermatypic corals, mainly comprising Tarbellastraea, Heliastraea, Favites, Favia, Acanthastraea, Porites, Caulastraea and Stylophora with occasional presence of solitary (ahermatypic) corals, Lithophyllia, Mussismilia and Leptomusso, locally reflecting relative changes in the bathymetry. Densely packed, massive, domal and hemispherical growth forms bounded by coralline algae and encrusting foraminifera Acervulina construct the reef framework. They occur in the fan-deltas and the transgressive open marine shelf carbonates of the Manavgat and the Köprüçay sub-basins. The Late Miocene reefs occur only in the Aksu sub-basin and are characterized by low-diversity hermatypic corals exclusively dominated by Porites and Tarbelastraea with minor Siderastraea, Favites and Platygyra. They developed on alluvial fan/fan-delta complexes and shallow marine shelf carbonates. The Miocene coral reef growth and development in the Antalya Basin are characterized by large- to small-scale, transgressive–regressive reefal cycles which are closely related to the complex interaction of sporadic influxes of coarse terrigeneous clastics derived from the tectonically active basin margins and the related sea-level fluctuations.