The Permian Kas Formation of SE Turkey—palynological correlation with strata from Saudi Arabia and Oman

The Kas Formation in SE Turkey was deposited as part of the Permian sequence on the northern margin of the Arabian Plate. Its stratigraphic relationship to time‐equivalent strata of the Arabian Plate was mentioned briefly in previous studies, but has not been elaborated and illustrated in detail. This biostratigraphic review of existing palaeontological data has improved the accuracy of age interpretation for the Kas Formation, and the relationship of its excellent palynological record to the international Permian chronostratigraphic units. As a result, this study has identified a number of key palynological species from the Kas Formation, which occur as well as in the ‘Basal Khuff Clastics’ of Saudi Arabia and in the ‘Khuff transition section’ of Oman. All these units have approximately the same age: Wordian to early Capitanian, based on ‘age control’ provided by Foraminifera. This study also demonstrates that, by using key palynological taxa, correlation of strata would be possible across the entire Arabian Plate in this narrow time range. Hence, the ‘Oman and Saudi Arabia Palynological Zone 6’ (OSPZ6) is applicable throughout the Arabian Plate area, including the northern regions of SE Turkey and Iraq. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Generation of the Early Cenozoic adakitic volcanism by partial melting of mafic lower crust,Eastern Turkey: Implications for crustal thickening to delamination

Early Cenozoic (48–50 Ma) adakitic volcanic rocks from the Eastern Pontides, NE Turkey, consist of calc-alkaline and high-K calc-alkaline andesite and dacite, with SiO₂ contents ranging from 56.01 to 65.44 wt.%. This is the first time that Early Eocene volcanism and adakites have been reported from the region. The rocks are composed of plagioclase, amphibole, quartz, and Mg-rich biotite. They have high and low-Mg# values ranging from 55 to 62 and 13 to 42, respectively. High-Mg# rocks have higher Ni and Co contents than low-Mg# samples. The rocks exhibit enrichments in large ion lithophile elements including the light rare earth elements, depletions in Nb, Ta and Ti and have high La/Yb and Sr/Y ratios. Their relative high I_Sr (0.70474–0.70640) and low ε_Nd (50 Ma) values (? 2.3 to 0.8) are inconsistent with an origin as partial melts of a subducted oceanic slab. Combined major- and trace element and Sr–Nd isotope data suggest that the adakitic magmas are related to the unique tectonic setting of this region, where a transition from a collision to an extension stage has created thickening and delamination of the Pontide mafic lower crust at 50 Ma. The high-Mg adakitic magmas resulted from partial melting of the delaminated eclogitic mafic lower crust that sank into the relatively hot subcrustal mantle, and its subsequent interaction with the mantle peridotite during upward transport, leaving garnet as the residual phase, elevates the MgO content and Mg# of the magmas, whereas low-Mg# magmas formed by the melting of newly exposed lower crustal rocks caused by asthenospheric upwelling, which supplies heat flux to the lower crust. The data also suggest that the mafic lower continental crust beneath the region was thickened between the Late Cretaceous and the Late Paleocene and delaminated during Late Paleocene to Early Eocene time, which coincides with the initial stage of crustal thinning caused by crustal extensional events in the Eastern Pontides and rules out the possibility of an extensional regime before ~ 50 Ma in the region during the Late Mesozoic to Early Cenozoic.     

Deformational behaviour of continental lithosphere deduced from block rotations across the North Anatolian fault zone in Turkey

Theoretical considerations of lithosphere deformation across transform plate boundaries predict an expression in terms of 3istributed deformation. The magnitude of rotation is expected to diminish away from the fault zone in a way which depends on the length of the fault, the amount of displacement, and the ductility of the lithosphere. Palaeomagnetic studies across the North Anatolian transform fault zone, which separates the Eurasian Plate and Anatolian Block in northern Turkey, show that clockwise rotations predicted from the sense of dextral motion are indeed present and have attained finite rotations of up to 270° during the 5 Ma history of Neotectonic deformation. Such rotations are, however, confined to narrow ( 10 km wide) zones between system-bounding faults and appear to have resulted from rotation in ball-bearing fashion of equidimensional blocks a few kilometres in size. Outside of this zone only anticlockwise rotations are observed; these are unrelated to deformation across the fault zone and record regional anticlockwise rotation of Turkey which is complementing clockwise rotation of Greece and accompanying Neogene opening of the Aegean Sea. The observed behaviour of continental lithosphere satisfies no plausible value of power law behaviour. We therefore conclude that relative motion across this transform boundary occurs as a discrete zone of intense deformation within a brittle layer comprising the seismogenic upper crust. This is presumed to be detached from a continuum deformation response to shearing in the lower crust and mantle beneath.     

Crustal velocity structure in the southern edge of the Central Alborz (Iran)

Inversion of local earthquake travel times and joint inversion of receiver functions and Rayleigh wave group velocity measurements were used to derive a simple model for the velocity crustal structure beneath the southern edge of the Central Alborz (Iran), including the seismically active area around the megacity of Tehran. The P and S travel times from 115 well-located earthquakes recorded by a dense local seismic network, operated from June to November 2006, were inverted to determine a 1D velocity model of the upper crust. The limited range of earthquake depths (between 2 km and 26 km) prevents us determining any velocity interfaces deeper than 25 km. The velocity of the lower crust and the depth of the Moho were found by joint inversion of receiver functions and Rayleigh wave group velocity data. The resulting P-wave velocity model comprises an upper crust with 3 km and 4 km thick sedimentary layers with P wave velocities (V_p) of ～5.4 and ～5.8 km s^?1, respectively, above 9 km and 8 km thick layers of upper crystalline crust (V_p ～6.1 and ～6.25 km s^?1 respectively). The lower crystalline crust is ～34 km thick (V_p ～ 6.40 km s^?1). The total crustal thickness beneath this part of the Central Alborz is 58 ± 2 km.     

Analysis of Ezinepazarı–Sungurlu Fault Zone (Turkey) using Landsat TM data and its kinematic implications

The study area is located between Çorum and Amasya along the Ezinepazar?–Sungurlu Fault Zone (ESFZ) which is regarded as the splay of the North Anatolian Fault Zone (NAFZ). By this study, the 1/25,000 scaled geological map of the study area was prepared, and its stratigraphic and tectonic characteristics were unraveled as a result of palaeontological and petrographical analyses of the samples collected from different rock units. Particularly, geologic ages of the Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous Ferhatkaya and Carcurum and Middle Eocene Çekerek formations were provided from palaeontological determinations. Using Landsat TM and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission 3 (SRTM 3) data of the region, the borders between the rock units and the tectonic characteristics in the study area were clarified by spectral and spatial enhancement methods. Kinematic characteristics of ESFZ obtained from the young sedimentary rocks along both sides of the fault zone were also inferred in this study. Understanding the kinematic and geometrical characteristics of the faults is important in terms of the seismotectonics of the region. In the statistical study conducted on the basis of the directions of the lineaments indicates the highest concentrations in general between N 50° - 60° E and N 60° - 70° E. Band 7 of the study area was enlightened in SE direction taking into consideration the relation of the geologic structures in the region with NAFZ and ESFZ and their general strike directions. Along with the formation of NAFZ, the region has undergone a counterclockwise rotation of approximately 20°–30°, which has developed between the “splay” faults in the south block of that fault. These faults are strike-slip faults formed under the compressional regime roughly in a NW–SE direction. It is noted that this tectonic regime has developed under compression in NW–SE direction, which was dominant in similar kinematic analysis studies conducted on NAFZ.     

Numerical Simulation of Small Perturbation on an Accretion Disk Due to the Collision of a Star with the Disk Near the Black Hole

In this paper, perturbations of an accretion disk by a star orbiting around a black hole are studied. We report on a numerical experiment, which has been carried out by using a parallel-machine code originally developed by Dönmez (2004). An initially steady state accretion disk near a non-rotating (Schwarzschild) black hole interacts with a “star”, modeled as an initially circular region of increased density. Part of the disk is affected by the interaction. In some cases, a gap develops and shock wave propagates through the disk. We follow the evolution for order of one dynamical period and we show how the non-axisymetric density perturbation further evolves and moves downwards where the material of the disk and the star become eventually accreted onto the central body. When the star perturbs the steady state accretion disk, the disk around the black hole is destroyed by the effect of perturbation. The perturbed accretion disk creates a shock wave during the evolution and it loses angular momentum when the gas hits on the shock waves. Colliding gas with the shock wave is the one of the basic mechanism of emitting the X-rays in the accretion disk. The series of supernovae occurring in the inner disk could entirely destroy the disk in that region which leaves a more massive black hole behind, at the center of galaxies.