The genesis, mineralization, and stratigraphic significance of phosphatic/glauconitic condensed limestone unit in the Manavgat Basin, SW Turkey

A condensed hemipelagic limestone unit with glauconite and phosphate separates a drowned Late Burdigalian carbonate platform from overlying Langhian pelagic mudstones, marls, and calcarenitic tempestites within the Neogene Manavgat Basin of southwestern Anatolia, Turkey. The unit consists of coeval lenticular limestone bodies, between 1 cm and 15 m in thickness, ranging from 10 m to 3 km in lateral extent. The P2O5 content of this limestone ranges from 0.2 to 10% by weight and the iron-oxide, clay, and other metal-oxide contents of this unit substantially exceed those of the underlying and overlying rocks.This condensed stratigraphic unit was deposited on the southwesterly outer shelf portions of drowned horsts that directly faced upwelling currents. The unit displays three main facies: 1) glauconitic phosphate crusts associated with hardgrounds; 2) bedded glauconitic-phosphatic limestones; and 3) glauconitic-phosphatic limestones interbedded with resedimented limestones. Facies (1) forms the thinnest units whereas facies (3) is the thickest, since the thickness and spatial distribution of this facies are related to environmental contrasts caused by block faulting of the underlying carbonate platform.This lithostratigraphic unit of hemipelagic glauconite–phosphate deposition represents an interval of maximum flooding in tectonically active situations and depositional hiatus on submarine highs that separate the carbonate transgressive systems tract from the overlying terigenic tempestite highstand systems tract. This appears to be the sole condensed unit within the Miocene Manavgat Basin; and is here ascribed to a third-order (2.3) eustatic rise in sea level comprising the maximum flooding of the first-order cycle. This is also the time for early–Mid Miocene major changes in Mediterranean climate from tropical to temperate.