An Active Composite Pull-apart Basin Within the Central Part of the North Anatolian Fault System: the Merzifon-Suluova Basin, Turkey

Date

2012-07-01

Author

Rojay, Fuat Bora

Metadata

Show full item record

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Item Usage Stats

121
views

0
downloads

The North Anatolian Fault System (NAPS) that separates the Eurasian plate in the north from the Anatolian microplate in the south is an intracontinental transform plate boundary. Its course makes a northward convex arch-shaped pattern by flexure in its central part between Ladik in the east and Kargi in the west. A number of strike-slip basins of dissimilar type and age occur within the NAFS. One of the spatially large basins is the E-W-trending Merzifon-Suluoya basin (MS basin), about 53 km long and 22 km wide, located on the southern inner side of the northerly-convex section of the NAFS. The MS basin has two infills separated from each other by an angular unconformity. The older and folded one is exposed along the fault-controlled margins of the basin, and dominantly consists of a Miocene fluvio-lacustrine sedimentary sequence. The younger, nearly horizontal basin infill (neotectonic infill) consists mainly of Plio-Quaternary conglomerates and sandstone-mudstone alternations of fan-apron deposits, alluvial fan deposits and recent basin floor sediments. The two basin infills have an angular unconformity between them and the deformed pattern of the older infill reveals the superimposed nature of the MS basin. The MS basin is controlled by a series of strike-slip fault zones along its margins. These are the E-W-trending Merzifon dextral fault zone along its northern margin, the E-W-trending Saribugday dextral fault zone along its southern margin and the NW-trending Suluova normal fault zone along its eastern margin. The basin is cut by the E-W-trending Uzunyazi dextral fault zone, which runs parallel to the northern and southern bounding fault zones and displays a well-developed overlapping relay pattern by forming a positive flower structure. The faults of the zone cut Quaternary neotectonic infill and tectonically juxtapose the fill with older rock units. The central faults are seismically more active than the bounding faults, and are therefore relatively younger faults. The early-formed rhomboidal basin is subdivided by these E-W-trending younger faults into several coalescing sub-basins, converting it into a composite pull-apart basin. The total cumulative post-Pliocene dextral offset along the southern bounding faults is about 12.6 km.

Subject Keywords

North Anatolian Fault System, Plio-Quaternary, Composite pull-apart basin, Merzifon-Suluova

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/52925

Journal

TURKISH JOURNAL OF EARTH SCIENCES

Collections

Department of Geological Engineering, Article

Suggestions

OpenMETU
Core

Displacements and Kinematics of the February 1, 1944 Gerede Earthquake (North Anatolian Fault System, Turkey): Geodetic and Geological Constraints Ayhan, Mehmet Emin; Kocyigit, Ali (2010-01-01) The North Anatolian Fault System (NAFS) is an approximately 2-110-km-wide, 1600-km-long right-lateral intra-continental transform fault boundary between the Anatolian platelet and the Eurasian plate. The Gerede fault zone is one of the major active structures in the western section of the NAFS. It is a 1-9-km-wide, 325-km-long and ENE-trending dextral strike-slip fault zone, with a total accumulated offset since its initiation (Late Pliocene) of about 43 km. This offset indicates an average geological slip ...
Shear wave splitting along a nascent plate boundary: the North Anatolian Fault Zone Biryol, C. Berk; Zandt, George; Beck, Susan L.; Özacar, Atilla Arda; Adiyaman, Hande E.; Gans, Christine R. (Oxford University Press (OUP), 2010-06-01) P>The North Anatolian Fault Zone (NAFZ) is a transform structure that constitutes the boundary between the Anatolian Plate to the south and the Eurasia Plate to the north. We analysed the properties of the upper-mantle strain field and mantle anisotropy in the vicinity of NAFZ via splitting of SKS and SKKS phases. We used data from the North Anatolian Fault (NAF) passive seismic experiment. This is the first study that analyses the upper-mantle anisotropy in this region and our results indicate that the obs...
Subsurface signature of North Anatolian Fault Zone and its relation with old sutures: New insight from receiver function analysis Özacar, Atilla Arda (null; 2017-04-28) The North Anatolian Fault Zone (NAFZ) is an active continental transform plate boundary that accommodates the westward extrusion of the Anatolian plate. The central segment of NAFZ displays northward convex surface trace which coincides partly with the Paleo-Tethyan suture formed during the early Cenozoic. The depth extent and detailed structure of the actively deforming crust along the NAF is still under much debate and processes responsible from rapid uplift are enigmatic. In this study, over five thousan...
Lake Hazar basin: A negative flower structure on the east anatolian fault system (EAFS), SE Turkey Aksoy, Ercan; Inceoez, Murat; Kocyigit, Ali (2007-01-01) The East Anatolian Fault System ( EAFS) is a 30-km-wide, 700-km-long and NE-trending sinistral strike-slip megashear belt between the Anatolian platelet in the northwest and African-Arabian plates in the southeast. It is located between Karliova County in the NE and Karatas ( Adana)-Samandag ( Antakya) in the SW. In the Lake Hazar region, the EAFS consists of five fault zones. These are, from north to south, the Elazig fault zone, the Uluova fault zone, the Sivrice fault zone, the Adiyaman fault zone and th...
A tectonic escape structure: Erciyes pull-apart basin, Kayseri, central Anatolia, Turkey Kocyigit, A; Erol, O (2001-01-01) A large sinistral intracontinental transcurrent structure, the Central Anatolian Fault Zone (CAFZ), is located between Erzincan in the northeast and offshore of Anamur county in the southwest of Turkey. Northeastern and southwestern segments of the fault zone are linked to each other by an intervening and approximately NS-trending transtensional structure, the Erciyes pull-apart basin (EPB). The Kizilirmak-Erkilet and Dokmetas segments of the CAFZ bend southwards at about 45 degrees -50 degrees near Kayseri...

Citation Formats

F. B. Rojay, “An Active Composite Pull-apart Basin Within the Central Part of the North Anatolian Fault System: the Merzifon-Suluova Basin, Turkey,” TURKISH JOURNAL OF EARTH SCIENCES, pp. 473–496, 2012, Accessed: 00, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://hdl.handle.net/11511/52925.