Neotectonic evolution of the Anaximander Mountains at the junction of the Hellenic and Cyprus arcs

Abstract

The Anaximander Mountains, occupying an outer-arc position at the junction of the Hellenic and Cyprus arcs, have been studied using a suite of geophysical data including multibeam swath bathymetry, backscatter images, seismic reflection profiles and gravity and magnetic data, which support an improved description of its deformation history. Lithologically, the western mountains can be correlated with the neritic limestones of the Bey Dağlarý unit of SW Turkey. The eastern mountains relate to the ophiolitic Antalya Nappe Complex. In addition to this lithological contrast, a deep-seated crustal difference, which is best reflected in gravimetry, relates to the mid-Tortonian Aksu thrust phase. After the Early–Middle Miocene eastward emplacement of the Lycian Nappes, the Serravallian–Tortonian stage was characterized by the development of an array of grabens with N120°E strikes, which occupied a vast continental area that extended from southern Aegean to southwestern Turkey. During the mid-Tortonian, the last phase of thrusting marked the onset of a different kinematic regime related to the westward rotation of the Anatolian platelet. This Late Miocene change marked the start of differential subsidence that resulted in the formation of the Anaximander Mountains and which is reflected by an unconformity surface between the Lower–Middle Miocene and Plio–Quaternary units. The Messinian–Quaternary period in the western part of the Anaximander Mountains was characterized by distributed sinistral shear parallel to N70°E, which was marked by the onset of an extension on N20°E-striking normal faults that formed long graben-like depressions. During the Pliocene, these basins were transected by N70°E-striking sinistral strike-slip fault zones, although continued crustal extension suggests deformation in transtension. The eastern part of the Anaximander Mountains is instead characterized by N150°E-striking normal and/or oblique normal fault zones, which lack significant evidence of strike-slip deformation. Close examination of newly calculated predicted relative plate motions between Africa (from NUVEL-1A) and Anatolia (from GPS measurements) indicates that plate motion vectors change rapidly at the junction between the Hellenic and Cyprus arcs because of the close proximity to the pole of Anatolian rotation. These calculations indicate that along both the eastern Hellenic Arc and the western Cyprus arcs (the Florence Rise), the relative motion between the Anatolian and African plates is sinistral. On the southern Florence Rise, deformation is characterized by pure left-lateral faulting, whereas farther northwest, in the eastern Anaximander Mountains, the component of strike-slip decreases. Although arc-normal convergence predicts the occurrence of thrust faulting, southwestward trench retreat also causes an extension internal to this outer-arc domain, such that the preexisting N120°E-striking thrust faults of the Aksu phase have been reactivated as normal to oblique normal faults during the Pliocene and Quaternary. The observed sinistral faulting on faults striking N70°E in the western mountains is consistent with the relative plate motion along the eastern Hellenic Arc and merges with the extensional domain in the eastern mountains.