Turkey, Cyprus, Greece 2014

SINK Projects

In the summer of 2014, I have conducted several field trips with my PhD students Kalijn Peters, Derya Gürer, and Peter McPhee, post-doc Ayten Koc, and master students Mathijs Koymans, Folkert van Straaten en David de Vlieg, and colleagues Fraukje Brouwer, Nuri Kaymakci, and Demir Altiner, to Greece, northern Cyprus, and Turkey, in the context of the Subduction Initiation reconstructed from Neotethyan Kinematics (SINK) project. The themes of the field trips varied from mapping and sampling sub-ophiolitic metamorphic soles in the Vourinos and Pindos ophiolites of Greece to paleomagnetic sampling in the Sivas Basin of eastern Turkey, and structural geology in the Tauride fold-thrustbelt of southern Turkey. Below you find an impression of these field trips.

Kalijn Peters, PhD student at Utrecht University, working on metamorphic soles

Peter McPhee, PhD student at Utrecht University, working on the structural evolution of the Taurides

Derya Gürer, PhD student at Utrecht University, working on tectonic reconstruction of central and eastern Turkey

Mathijs Koymans, MSc student at Utrecht University, working on the rotation history of the Sivas basin

Ayten Koç, Post-Doc at Utrecht University, working on Neogene paleomagnetism and Tectonics of the Taurides and Cyprus

Folkert van Straaten, MSc student at Utrecht University, working on a restored structural cross-section through the Cyprus fold-thrust belt

David de Vlieg, MSc student at Utrecht University, working on paleomagnetism of northern Cyprus

Demir Altiner, Professor of Paleontology, Middle East Techinical University, Ankara

Nuri Kaymakci, Professor of Tectonics, Middle East Technical University, Ankara

Fraukje Brouwer, University Lecturer of Petrology, VU University, Amsterdam

...and me

Pete's project brought us to the Taurides and the heart of the Isparta angle, where several large Neogene basins formed on top of limestones and ophiolites of the Taurides. This picture shows the Koprucay river in the valley of the Koprucay basin

Demir explaining Jurassic stratigraphy to Pete

Thrust between what we called the Pinarbasi (left) and flat valley (right) nappes in the Tauride fold thrust belt. Pete is building and balancing a section across the Taurides

Among the most spectacular findings is that the upper Miocene follows the general basement structure in the Koprucay basin, where for decades a major strike-slip fault has been mapped...

...which doesn't exist. Image taken at nearly 2 km elevation, showing Miocene breccias unconformably overlying Triassic limestones at the position of the alledge Kirkkavak fault

One of the major thrusts in Pete's study area is the Aksu thrust, which is exposed along the margins of the Karacaören dam lake.

So, we got ourselves into a canoe, and mapped the shores

Which started off pretty relaxing...

with sunny weather and no wind to speak of...

Until this baby came along, with us on the far side of the lake, kilometers from home :)

The way back was quite bumpy in an open canoe :)

Pete, drawing structure in deformed limestones

...which contain Megalodon fossils, giant clams

Structure in the Taurides is beautifully exposed, here in the Aladag nappe

And if you're lucky, you find old paved roads that belonged to the Silk route of the days of Marco Polo...

...our crappy field car wasn't always amused

Pete, checking out spectacular soft-sediment deformation in the Köpruçay Basin

With Kalijn and Fraukje, I went to the Pindos and Vourinos ophiolites of Greece this year, mapping and sampling their metamorphic soles

Kalijn, studing serpentinized peridotites above the sole of the Pindos ophiolite

Kalijn, taking samples to date the lava sequence, here exposed in a quarry, of the Vourinos ophiolite...

...as well as its sheeted dyke section (the dykes are almost parallel to the outcrop, Kalijn is standing at the base of one of them)

The shiny minerals are pyroxenes, which dominate this rock called a pyroxenite, which forms dykes in the Vourinos peridotites

...which is noted, sampled, and brought home

Beautiful views of the Pindos mountains...which by the way hosts brown bears...we encountered one sitting in front of Kalijn's metamorphic sole, but ran away before I could catch him on camera :(

me, standing in front of a pyroxenite dyke in the Pindos ophiolite

Derya went to sample Cenozoic sediments in the Sivas basin this year, a totally different scenery with little vegetationa nd a lot of outcrop

...including Eocene blue marls, ideal targets for paleomagnetic sampling

Derya and Mathijs, collecting samples in these Eocene rocks

Derya, on her way to sample Eocene redbeds

drilled into a swiss cheese

...chillaxing in the dirt

Mathijs, cleaning a new site

Finally, we carried out a fieldwork in the Kyrenia range of northern, Turkish Cyprus, with Ayten, Pete, Folkert (here in the picture), and David

We collected paleomagnetic samples, with me here drilling in the Oligocene along the north coast

...structural mapping, here with Pete and Folkert

The Kyrenia range is a narrow, high ridge reaching up to 800 m above sea level. This picture is a view on Kyrenia taken from the range

The upper Cretaceous to Paleogene section of northern Cyprus contains spectacular pillow lavas interbedded within shallow to open marine sediments

...but also serpentinized peridotites with gabbro pockets and dolerite dykes...we're working on this, but this smells to me like a proper ophiolite relict...