Genesis of collision volcanism in Eastern Anatolia, Turkey

Abstract

Late Cenozoic volcanism in Eastern Anatolia extends in a broad SW - NE trending belt across the Arabia - Eurasia collision zone, from the Arabian foreland basin in the southwest and to the Kars Plateau and Lesser Caucasus in the northeast. Foreland volcanism is dominated by basaltic shield and fissure eruptions of transitional tholeiitic - alkaline composition. Volcanism on the thickened crust north of the Bitlis Thrust Zone varies from the mildly alkaline volcano, Nemrut, and older Mus volcanics in the south, through the transitional calc-alkaline/alkaline volcanoes Bingöl and Süphan and the alkaline volcano Tendürek to the calc-alkaline volcano Ararat and older Kars plateau volcanics in the north. Isotope (Sr, Nd) and trace element systematics indicate that the lavas from the foreland were derived from the mantle lithosphere of the Arabian continent which had been enriched by small volumes of asthenospheric melts over a period of time; and that lavas from the alkaline volcanic area around Mus, and the volcanoes Nemrut and Tendürek north of the Bitlis Thrust Zone were derived from a lithospheric source of similar composition, either from the same, underthrust, Arabian continent or from the Bitlis Massif microcontinent. By contrast, the transitional lavas from Bingöl and Süphan and the calc-alkaline lavas from Ararat and Kars were derived from lithosphere carrying a distinct subduction signature inherited from pre-collision subduction events. Positive correlations between 87Sr/ 86Sr and SiO 2 and Rb/Nb and SiO 2 in the alkaline and transitional lavas suggest that combined assimilation and fractional crystallization was an important process within at least part of the thickened crust of the collision zone. Trace element covariation diagrams such as Y-Rb indicate the importance of hornblende crystallization at depth (and orthopyroxene at shallow levels) within the calc-alkaline provinces, in contrast to the consistently anhydrous crystallization sequences of the alkaline lavas. Trace element diagrams, based on the covariation of compatible and incompatible elements, point to moderate - low degrees of partial melting with residual clinopyroxene throughout, and residual garnet in the foreland province. Consideration of mineral stabilities, mantle solidi and geothermal gradients before and after collision suggest that lithospheric thickening should both increase the thickness of metasomatized lithosphere and depress the metasomatized zone to greater depths, probably beneath the amphibole and dolomite breakdown curves. Perturbation of the thickened lithosphere by delamination of the thermal boundary layer, perhaps coupled with local stretching associated with pull-apart basins on strike-slip fault systems, is then sufficient to generate melt, the composition of that melt being largely dependent on the enrichment history of the lithosphere in question. In Eastern Anatolia, volcanism appears to have started between about 8 and 6 Ma ago, some 5 Ma after the start of rapid uplift of the East Anatolian Plateau.