Sedimentological and geochemical characteristics of Lower Jurassic Sandstones from Gümüşhane, NE Turkey: implications for source to sink processes, paleoenvironmental conditions, provenance and tectonic settings

Abstract

ABSTRACT The eastern Sakarya Zone (SZ), one of the Alpine Himalayan Belt’s main components, has complex Mesozoic–Cenozoic geodynamic evolution, which remains controversial. Early-Middle Jurassic volcano-sedimentary successions (Şenköy Formation) extensively outcrops in Gümüşhane region, NE Turkey. It is regarded as a critical unit to understand the Mesozoic tectonic evolution of the eastern Sakarya Zone. One of the Şenköy Formation’s predominant units is sandstone succession, preserving implications for paleoenvironmental conditions and tectono-sedimentary development of Neotethys Ocean. Thus, a combined analysis of comprehensive petrography, whole-rock major, trace and rare earth element data is carried out on the sandstones, which are well constrained as late Sinemurian- Pliensbachian. The sandstones are mainly arkosic to lithic arenites in lithology showing poor textural maturities. They are mostly represented by relatively high ICV, low CIA, high K2O/Al2O3, Fe2O3+ MgO, TiO2, Th/U, pronounced negative Eu anomaly, enriched LREEs, elevated GdN/YbN, low Ce/Ce*, Ni/Co, La/V and Zr/Ti. The petrographic and geochemical characteristics imply that the sediments may have experienced relatively low chemical weathering processes and slight reworking and recycling processes with a short transport distance before deposition in the basin. Early Jurassic sandstone successions were interpreted as a transgressive series, showing a predominantly open sea environment with oxidizing paleoenvironmental conditions. The sandstone samples’ paleoenvironment is likely to be located along the southern margin of the arc and the Neotethyan basin to the south. The extensional and trans-extensional tectonic regime might have played an essential role in controlling the basin’s isolated-half graben and/or asymmetric geometry, leading to changes in the provenance of studied sandstone samples. Thus, the geochemical signature differences are probably associated with basement-related proximal origins and minor effects of the multi-phases petrogenesis that experienced different source to sink processes. Early Jurassic sandstones were probably derived from multi-genetic source rocks, including (i) granite and (ii) metamorphic rocks. Our new data has also indicated that other source rocks can include mafic to felsic volcanic succession. The possible provenance for granitic pluton and metamorphic rocks can be provided by the Hercynian heterogenetic crystalline basement widespread throughout the SZ. However, mafic to felsic volcanic rock source is likely to be associated with the pre-Early Jurassic nearby volcanic-arc, which is rarely recorded in the eastern SZ. The source rock signatures may imply a close genetic link with ancient magmatic-arc generation due to the southward subduction of Palaeotethys.