Rotation history of Chios Island, Greece since the Middle Miocene

Abstract

Superimposed on a regional pattern of oroclinal bending in the Aegean and west Anatolian regions, the coastal region of western Anatolia, shows a complex and chaotic pattern of coexisting clockwise and counterclockwise rotations. Here, we report new palaeomagnetic data from the eastern Aegean island of Chios, to test whether this fits the regional palaeomagnetic pattern associated with the Aegean orocline, or should be included in the narrow zone of chaotic palaeomagnetic directions. Therefore, a combined palaeomagnetic study of Miocene sediments and volcanic rocks has been carried out. Thermal and AF demagnetization of a 130-m thick Middle Miocene succession from the Michalos claypit allowed a stable component of both polarities to be isolated while rock magnetic experiments showed that the main magnetic carrier is magnetite. When compared with the Eurasian reference, the mean declination of 348 ± 5.1° implies 15° of counterclockwise rotation since Middle Miocene times. The obtained shallow inclination of 38 ± 6.7° was corrected to 61.8 ± 3.9°, by applying the elongation/inclination correction method for inclination shallowing. This result is similar to the expected inclination of 58° for the latitude of Chios. The palaeomagnetic analysis (demagnetization treatment and corresponding rock magnetic measurements) of the volcanic rocks identify a stable, predominantly normal, ChRM with poorly constrained mean declination of about 290 ± 19.8° based on five successfully resolved components. The significantly different palaeomagnetic results obtained from an island as small as Chios (and a very short distance), and the relatively large rotation amounts do not fit the regional palaeomagnetic direction of Lesbos and basins in northwestern Turkey which show little or no significant rotation. We thus prefer to include Chios in the coastal zone of chaotic rotations, which may represent a previously inferred tectonic transfer zone that accommodates lateral differences in extensional strain within the Aegean back-arc.