Abstract
Field observations in the thrust fault belt in southeastern Turkey reveal two contradictory relationships regarding the existence of the Turkish microplate and the southern Tethys. Jurassic and Early Cretaceous sediments on the platforms of the Turkish and Arabian plates can be correlated. This weakens the hypothesis that the Turkish plate was separated from Africa in the Triassic. On the other hand, stratigraphic relationships on slivers of continental crust between ophiolite strips do not allow the ophiolites north and south of such continental blocks to be linked. This necessitates postulating the previous existence of distinct oceanic basins between the continental slivers. The ophiolites in southeastern Turkey are of Upper Cretaceous age. The separation of the Turkish microplate, and the generation of southern Tethys in southeastern Turkey did not take place in Triassic times but in the Late Cretaceous. Plate rupture was probably caused by a major change in plate motions 80 m.y. ago. The Turkish plate was completely sheared off the northern edge of Africa by northeasterly trending transcurrent faults through southeastern Turkey. Mantle leakage along such transcurrent faults must have generated the ophiolites of the thrust fault belt of south eastern Turkey in narrow ocean basins between ribbons of continental crust.
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