Costanza Faranda

Late Miocene surface uplift of the southern margin of the Central Anatolian Plateau, Central Taurides, Turkey

The timing and pattern of surface uplift of Miocene marine sediments capping the southern margin of the Central Anatolian Plateau in southern Turkey provide a first-order constraint on possible mechanisms of regional uplift. Nannofossil, ostracod, and planktic foraminifera biostratigraphy of the Basyayla section (Mut-Ermenek Basin) within the Mut and Koselerli Formations suggests a Tortonian age for marine sediments unconformably capping basement rocks at ∼2 km elevation. The identification of biozone MMi 12a (7.81–8.35 Ma) from planktic foraminifera in the upper part of the section provides the tightest constraint on the age, which is further limited to 8.35–8.108 Ma as a result of the reverse polarity of the collected samples (chron 4r.1r or 4r.2r). This provides a limiting age for the onset of surface uplift at the margin of one of the world’s major orogenic plateaus, from which an average uplift rate of 0.24–0.25 mm/yr can be calculated. Subhorizontal beds of the uppermost marine sediments exposed throughout the Mut-Ermenek Basin suggest minimal localized deformation, with just minor faulting at the basin margin and broad antiformal deformation across the basin. This implies that the post–8 Ma uplift mechanism must be rooted deep within the crust or in the upper mantle. Published Pn-wave velocity data for the region are compatible with topography compensated by asthenosphere across the southern margin of the plateau, showing a close match to the highest topography when elevations are filtered with a 100-km-wide smoothing window. Uplift along the southern margin of the Central Anatolian Plateau is also reflected by the pattern of Miocene marine sediments capping the margin, which form an asymmetric drape fold over the topography. These observations, together with tomographic evidence for slab steepening and break-off beneath the Eastern Anatolian Plateau, suggest that at least some of the ∼2 km of post–8 Ma uplift of the southern Central Anatolian Plateau margin is compensated by low-density asthenospheric mantle that upwelled following slab break-off.

Easternmost Mediterranean evidence of the Zanclean flooding event and subsequent surface uplift: Adana Basin, southern Turkey

Abstract According to the literature, the Adana Basin, at the easternmost part of the Mediterranean Basin in southern Turkey, records the Pliocene stage with shallow-marine to fluvial deposits. Our micropalaeontological analysis of samples from the Adana Basin reveal Late Lago–Mare biofacies with Paratethyan ostracod assemblages pertaining to the Loxocorniculina djafarovi zone. Grey clays rich in planktonic foraminifera lie above the Lago–Mare deposits. Within the grey clays, the continuous occurrence of the calcareous nannofossil Reticulofenestra zancleana and the base of the Reticulofenestra pseudoumbilicus paracme points to an Early Zanclean age (5.332–5.199 Ma). Both ostracod and benthic foraminifera indicate epibathyal and bathyal environments. 87Sr/86Sr measurements on planktonic and benthic foraminifera fall below the mean global ocean value for the Early Zanclean, indicating potentially insufficient mixing of low 87Sr/86Sr Mediterranean brackish ‘Lago–Mare’ water with the global ocean in the earliest Pliocene. We utilize the ages and palaeodepths of the marine sediments together with their modern elevations to determine uplift rates of the Adana Basin of 0.06 to 0.13 mm a−1 since 5.2–5.3 Ma (total uplift of 350–650 m) from surface data, and 0.02–0.13 mm a−1 since c. 1.8 Ma (total uplift of 30–230 m) from subsurface data. Supplementary material: Microphotographs of foraminifers, ostracods, and calcareous nannofossils, plots of the calcareous nannofossil frequencies, occurrence of foraminifers and ostracods in the study sections, results of Sr isotopic analysis, and a complete list of fossils are available at www.geolsoc.org.uk/SUP18535.

Early-Middle Pleistocene benthic turnover and oxygen isotope stratigraphy from the Central Mediterranean (Valle di Manche, Crotone Basin, Italy): Data and trends

Ostracod faunal turnover and oxygen isotope data (foraminifera) along the Valle di Manche (VdM) section are herein compiled. Specifically, the material reported in this work includes quantitative palaeoecological data and patterns of ostracod fauna framed within a high-resolution oxygen isotope stratigraphy (δ18O) from Uvigerina peregrina. In addition, the multivariate ostracod faunal stratigraphic trend (nMDS axis-1 sample score) is calibrated using bathymetric distributions of extant molluscs sampled from the same stratigraphic intervals along the VdM section. Data and analyses support the research article “Dynamics of benthic marine communities across the Early-Middle Pleistocene boundary in the Mediterranean region (Valle di Manche, Southern Italy): biotic and stratigraphic implications” Rossi et al. [1].