NEOTECTONICS OF ANATOLIA IN CROSSROADS OF AN EVOLVING OROGEN -- A SUMMARY

Anatolia located in crossroads of the European and Asian terrains is one of the fastest deforming land in the world, indicated by seismicity and GPS measurements. The region lies in a curved setting of the actively forming Alpine mountain range. Therefore, neotectonics of Anatolia provides not only a comparable geological model for the past orogens, but also a laboratory case for morphological consequences of an orogenic processes.

Anatolia comprise different tectonic subsettings with its own characteristics. Northern part is influenced by tectonic characteristics of the Black Sea Basin, the Pontides and the Caucasian Range; northwestern part by the Balkanides; eastern-southeastern part by the Bitlis-Zagros suture; and south-southwestern part by the eastern Mediterranean subduction setting. Much of present tectonic complexity of Anatolia was inhered from the convergence dominant pre-Neogene plate tectonic settings of platelets in the late Tethyan Ocean which formed a landmass. Beginning the middle-Neogene (about 12 Ma ago), when the previously folded and uplifted landmass was no longer able to accommodate further shortening in eastern Anatolia, ongoing tectonic activity gave rise to rearrangement of tectonic forces and westerly translational movements in this landmass. Formation of two major strike-slip faults in Anatolia, namely the North Anatolian Fault and the Eastern Anatolian Fault, and a new platelet called the Anatolian Plate are the consequence of this episode. Such change in the tectonic regime has led to modification of previous lanscape, modification and sometimes termination of earlier tectonically-controlled basins as well as formation of new ones. Evidence is present in the stratigraphy, tectonic characteristics and morphology of well-studied areas. This presentation will examplify neotectonic histories of the northwestern, southwestern and eastern Anatolian subsettings and discuss their influence on the morphology that is closely related to sites of pre-historical human settlement.