New sedimentological and structural data from the Ecemiş Fault Zone, southern Turkey: implications for its timing and offset and the Cenozoic tectonic escape of Anatolia

Abstract

The left-lateral Ecemiş Fault Zone, with a newly estimated displacement c. 60 km, records important strike-slip deformation within Anatolia, prior to and during the Plio-Quaternary tectonic escape of the Anatolian ‘microplate’ along the well recognized right-lateral North Anatolian and the left-lateral East Anatolian Fault Zones. Mesozoic shallow-water carbonate deposition on the northern passive margin of a Tauride microcontinent was followed by southward ophiolite emplacement in latest Cretaceous time. Late Eocene final closure of one, or several, ocean basins within Central Anatolia further north caused further deformation, including large-scale north-vergent thrusting. Regional orogenic exhumation in the Oligocene to Mid-Miocene was accompanied by deposition of non-marine red-beds adjacent to the future Ecemiş Fault Zone and adjacent basins. Through-going left-lateral strike slip was initiated by the Mid-Miocene (or slightly earlier) and became become more transtensional/extensional during Pliocene–Quaternary time. Minor continuing left-lateral strike-slip is documented by stream offsets on major Plio-Quaternary alluvial fans shed from master fault scarps. The Ecemiş Fault Zone is, thus, identified as a regionally important strike-slip fault zone that was initially (Mid–Late Miocene) dominated by strike-slip and later (Pliocene–Quaternary) by extension.