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Kinematics of the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean Updated
| Content Provider | Paperity |
|---|---|
| Author | Westaway, Rob |
| Abstract | A revised quantitative, internally consistent, kinematic model has been determined for the present-day relative plate motions in the eastern Mediterranean and Middle Eastern regions, based on a combination of geological and GPS data. The relative motions of the brittle upper crust of the African and Arabian plates across the southern Dead Sea Fault Zone (DSFZ) are represented by relative rotation at 0.278° Ma-1 about an Euler pole at 31.1°N 26.7°E. The resulting predicted slip rate on the southern DSFZ is 4.0 mm a-1. The kinematics of the northern DSFZ are described as relative rotation at 0.243° Ma-1 about the same Euler pole, the difference in rotation rates reflecting the absorption of a small component of the relative motion by distributed shortening in the Palmyra fold belt. The northern DSFZ, in Syria and southern Turkey, is regarded as a series of transpressional stepovers, along which the rate of left-lateral slip is substantially less than the rate of relative plate motion, because this slip is oriented strongly obliquely to the relative motion between the adjoining plates. This geometry seems to result in part from some strands of the northern DSFZ reactivating older fault segments, even though they were not optimally oriented relative to the plate motion, and in part because the ideal initial geometry of the DSFZ, which would have continued northwestward offshore of the Levant coastline towards Cyprus, was precluded by the high strength of the crust along this line. The revised slip rate on the East Anatolian Fault Zone (EAFZ) is estimated as ~8 mm a-1. At this rate, restoring the observed slip requires the age of the EAFZ to be ~4 Ma. The previous phase of deformation, which involved slip on the Malatya-Ovacık Fault Zone before the EAFZ came into being, is thus dated to ~7-4 Ma, suggesting a timing of initiation for the North Anatolian Fault Zone (NAFZ) of ~7 Ma, not ~5 Ma as has previously been thought. Local evidence from the western NAFZ also supports a ~7 Ma or Early Messinian age for the NAFZ. The overall present-day kinematics of the NAFZ are described using the Euler vector determined in 2000 using GPS: involving relative rotation between the Turkish and Eurasian plates at 1.2° Ma-1 about 30.7°N 32.6°E. This Euler vector predicts a rate of relative motion between these plates of ~25 mm a-1, which when extrapolated overestimates the observed amount of localised right-lateral slip, suggesting the existence of a component of distributed right-lateral simple shear in the surroundings to the NAFZ as well. The predicted rate of left-lateral relative motion on the boundary between the Turkish and African plates is estimated as ~8 mm a-1. However, the rate of localised left-lateral slip on the onshore part of this boundary is estimated as only ~2 mm a-1, on the Yakapınar-Göksun Fault: the difference being taken up by distributed deformation within the northern promontory |
| Starting Page | 5 |
| Ending Page | 46 |
| File Format | HTM / HTML |
| ISSN | 13000985 |
| Issue Number | 12 |
| Journal | Turkish Journal of Earth Sciences |
| Volume Number | 1 |
| e-ISSN | 1303619X |
| Language | English |
| Publisher Date | 2003-01-01 |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Subject Keyword | Crustal rheology Quaternary Messinian Pliocene Syria Dead sea fault zone Lebanon East anatolian fault zone Turkey Lower-crustal flow Israel Plate kinematics North anatolian fault zone |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
| Subject | Earth and Planetary Sciences |
