Varying tectonic control on basin development at an active microplate margin: Latakia Basin, Eastern Mediterranean

Abstract

Detailed interpretation of multichannel seismic reflection profiles show that the Latakia Basin evolved in two distinct tectonic stages: southeast-directed contraction that culminated in the latest Miocene, followed in the early–middle Pliocene by progressive transition to partitioned contraction and extension related to the initiation of strike slip along the eastern Anatolian Transform Fault and its marine extensions. The Miocene fold/thrust belt comprises two arcuate culminations enclosing a Miocene piggy-back depocentre situated on the backlimb of the Amanos–Larnaka ramp anticline. In the early–middle Miocene, this piggy-back basin was part of a much wider foredeep that also encompassed the Miocene successions of the Cilicia–Adana basin complex to the north. The Misis–Kyrenia fold/thrust belt evolved in the Tortonian, effectively dividing the foredeep into two large piggy-back basins. Our data demonstrate that a fundamental change in kinematic regime occurred during the Messinian to early Pliocene involving the onset of strike-slip movements resulting in transtension along the northeast-trending portion of the main lineaments bounding the Latakia Basin and continued contraction across the east-trending portion of the lineaments. In the northeastern portion of the Latakia Basin southeast-directed thrusting ceased in the early Messinian and was followed in the lower Pliocene by the development of horst and grabzen structures, bounded by faults linking onland with the strands of the East Anatolian Transform Fault.