Master of Environmental Science, Miami University, 2013, Geology and Environmental Earth Science

The E-W-trending Ulukisla basin (UB) in Turkey occurs between the Central Anatolian Crystalline Complex to the north and the Tauride carbonate platform to the south. It contains 5 km-thick, uppermost Cretaceous to Miocene-Pleistocene strata and Eocene magmatic rocks. The Cretaceous - Eocene sedimentary rocks comprise an upward shallowing sequence of clastics. The Eocene sequence includes marine turbidites and is transitional upwards into Oligocene rocks. The upward transition from Lower Oligocene shallow marine, deltaic deposits to Upper Oligocene-Miocene evaporate and terrestrial deposits indicates a record of a successor basin. The Upper Cretaceous and Lower Paleocene rocks and the Middle Eocene - Middle Miocene units are deformed by north- and south-vergent, upright and overturned folds and thrust, strike-slip faults. The E-W normal faults in the Middle Paleocene and Middle Eocene units represent extensional deformation coeval with slab breakoff and induced mafic magmatism. The Ulukisla depocenter initially developed as a successor basin in the latest Mesozoic-early Cenozoic and then evolved into a terrestrial basin in the late Tertiary.

Committee: Yildirim Dilek (Advisor) Subjects: Geology; Plate Tectonics; Sedimentary Geology