Faunal and palaeoenvironmental changes in the Cal Basin, SW Anatolia: Implications for regional stratigraphic correlation of late Cenozoic basins

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Alcicek M. C. , MAYDA S. , Alçiçek H.

COMPTES RENDUS GEOSCIENCE, vol.344, no.2, pp.89-98, 2012 (Journal Indexed in SCI) identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 344 Issue: 2
  • Publication Date: 2012
  • Doi Number: 10.1016/j.crte.2012.01.003
  • Title of Journal : COMPTES RENDUS GEOSCIENCE
  • Page Numbers: pp.89-98
  • Keywords: Orogen-top rift, Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimate, Terrestrial sedimentation, Fossil mammals, Stratigrapic correlation, SOUTHWESTERN ANATOLIA, SEDIMENTATION PATTERN, WESTERN TURKEY, DENIZLI BASIN, ALLUVIAL-FAN, CAMELI BASIN, SPAIN, EVOLUTION, FACIES, GRABEN

Abstract

The Cal Basin formed in the late Miocene as an orogen-top rift hosting terrestrial sedimentation. The initial array of alluvial fans in a half-graben basin was replaced by an axial meandering-river system during the late Tortonian. Palaeomammal taxa indicate a mid-Turolian age of the deposits and a grass-dominated steppe ecosystem. Isotopic data from pedogenic carbonates indicate a warm, semiarid to arid climate. Subhumid to humid climatic conditions prevailed in the Pliocene, with a palustrine environment and savannah-type open ecosystem, recording a regional response to the marine flooding that terminated the Messinian 'salinity crisis' in the Mediterranean. Pleistocene saw re-establishment of a fluvial system in the basin with the development of an open steppe ecosystem in warm, semiarid to arid climatic conditions. The sedimentary facies analysis of the basin-fill succession, combined with biostratigraphic data, render the basin a regional reference and help to refine the Neogene tectono-climatic history of SW Anatolia. (C) 2012 Academie des sciences. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.