View from the eastern margin of the Nigde Massif, across the basement-basin contact, the Central Anatolian(Ecemis) fault, and the Tauride Mountains (Aladag).

Evolution of continental lithosphere from collision to escape: the record in the rocks and landscape of Central Anatolia

Our group has been working in central and western Turkey, using the well-exposed rocks and structures to understand metamorphic and deformation processes in different tectonic regimes. In central Turkey, metamorphic rocks are exhumed adjacent to a major strike-slip fault, the Central Anatolian fault zone (CAFZ). This structure pre-dates the more famous and seismically active North Anatolian fault, and oblique motion related to the CAFZ is recorded in exhumed mid-crustal orogenic rocks adjacent to the fault. Our research group has worked out the history of vertical motion related to the fault over the past ~90 million years, but there are interesting questions unresolved about the later vertical vs. lateral motion of this and other intracontinental strike-slip faults.

In the Arabia-Eurasia collision zone, a transition from collision to escape tectonics is recorded by the Anatolian plate. Anatolia is part of an orogenic belt extending from the Pyrenees to SE Asia. All regions of the orogen experienced some degree of large-scale oblique displacement, but Anatolia records a transition from distributed to localized lateral motion (escape tectonics) that resulted in major lateral and vertical motion, voluminous volcanism, and landscape reorganization. The Anatolian plate today appears to be moving as a rigid body between 2 strike-slip faults (North and East Anatolian faults) away from a collision zone and towards an extensional domain associated with a retreating subduction zone (Aegean), but the geologic record of Anatolia reveals a > 60 million year history of deformation.

This interdisciplinary research focuses on how the lithosphere evolves (physically, thermally, chemically) in space and time in the mantle, crust, and at the Earth's surface during the initiation of continental collision and escape tectonics.

People: Erkan Toraman, Lauren Idleman, Christian Teyssier, Donna Whitney, Paul Umhoefer (NAU)