STRUCTURAL EVOLUTION OF THE CENTRAL TUZGOLU BASIN, CENTRAL ANATOLIA, TURKEY

Anatolia, Turkey contains many interior basins located between the Pontide Mountains to the north and Tauride Mountains to the south. The largest of these basins is the Tuzgölü basin which has been the focus of many field-oriented geological studies since the 1970s. Although surface geology of the basin is well established, its subsurface geology remains unstudied. We have studied subsurface structural geology of the central Tuzgölü basin based on our structural interpretation of ten available seismic reflection profiles to determine structural evolution of the basin. The seismic lines were depth converted using sonic log data from four wells.

Our preliminary interpretation suggests that the Tuzgölü basin has experienced a rift type extension during the Late Cretaceous. This is evidenced by the presence of conglomeratic red colored terrestrial Kartal Formation adjacent to the major normal faults that control sedimentation in the basin from late Cretaceous to Paleocene. The Kartal formation grades into shallow marine carbonate units of the Asmabogazi and Caldag formations which were dated as Maastrichtian and Paleocene in age respectively. The basin was influenced by the north-south contractions during the formation of Izmir-Ankara suture zone in Eocene. The contraction formed several regional thrust faults of the suture zone and caused reactivation of the Cretaceous normal fault as strike-slip faults. During the Neotectonics, the westward escape of the Anatolian plate caused the formation of new extensional structures in the basin. Neotectonic extension in the area created its own normal faults which controlled deposition of Oligo-Miocene Kochisar formation and Pliocene Cihanbeyli formations. These sedimentary units unconformably overly the Eocene Yassipur and Paleocene-Eocene Karapinaryaylasi formations.