Neogene-Recent Sedimentation and Development of the Adana-Cilician Basin

Graham Evans, Naci Gorur, Noori Alavi

The Adana-Cilician basin formed by interaction between the African, Arabian, and Anatolian plates. The basin has been filled asymmetrically from the north and northeast with the northeastern extremity having been completely filled to form the Adana basin beneath the plain of the Seyhan delta. There is no direct borehole evidence from the submarine areas, but coastal boreholes have revealed the presence of at least 6 km of Neogene sediment. The Burdigalian-Serravalian interval is dominated by turbidites and deep-water shales in the center of the Adana basin, with shallow-water clastics and carbonates around the margins. A layer of Messinian evaporite appears to underlie much of the basin. The Serravalian-Pleistocene sedimentation was dominated by shallow marine and terrest ial sedimentation in the Adana basin, the only part known.

Today, the Turkish rivers have built up several deltaic complexes. Quaternary sea level and climatic changes and the movement of river mouths have complicated the pattern of shelf sediments. Away from the immediate vicinity of river mouths, the sediments are rich in the remains of macrobenthos and microbenthos, and on tectonically controlled highs coralline algal mounds occur. The sediments of the deeper water areas (~1,000 m) show evidence of downslope movement of shelf sediments and anoxic periods, and they contain an impoverished molluscan and foraminiferal fauna. Sediment dispersal appears to have been confined by submarine tectonic barriers. Continuous uplift and faulting along some margins together with flow of evaporites away from the depocenters on the Turkish coast appear to e actively affecting the most recently deposited sediments.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91032©1988 Mediterranean Basins Conference and Exhibition, Nice, France, 25-28 September 1988.