Role of the Palaeogene–Recent sinistral El-Kabir Lineament and the associated transtensional Neogene–Recent El-Kabir Basin (northern Syria) in distributed deformation between the African and Eurasian plates

Abstract

Abstract The El-Kabir Lineament and the El-Kabir Basin further south form part of the southernmost of several sinistral strike-slip lineaments that characterize the distributed Africa–Eurasian collision zone in the easternmost Mediterranean region. Based on onshore field evidence and offshore two-dimensional (2D) seismic evidence, the El-Kabir fault lineament is interpreted as a sinistral strike-slip fault zone that was active at least from Middle Eocene time onwards. The El-Kabir Lineament was probably active in a transpressional mode during Middle Eocene–Early Miocene(?). The fault lineament was then active in a transtensional mode during Miocene–Recent time. The transtension resulted in the formation of the adjacent NE–SW El-Kabir Basin. Continuing subsidence provided the accommodation space for thick sediment accumulation (>3 km) within the El-Kabir Basin and its offshore extension (roughly corresponding to the Latakia Basin). Offshore 2D seismic data confirm that the basin is fault-bounded and that it continued to be active during Pliocene–Recent time. To the NE, the NE–SW El-Kabir Lineament is truncated and offset by the north–south-trending Dead Sea Transform Fault Zone (Ghab Graben), which propagated northwards during the Pliocene. The inferred Neogene–Recent transtension is explicable by kinematic linkage with oceanic crust in the easternmost Mediterranean that is likely to have experienced contemporaneous subduction zone rollback.