Pliocene-Pleistocene sedimentary-tectonic development of the Mesaoria (Mesarya) Basin in an incipient, diachronous collisional setting: facies evidence from the north of Cyprus

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Original Article

1.

Introduction

The main aim of this paper is to describe and interpret the Pliocene-Pleistocene sedimentary development of the northern part of the intermontane Mesaoria (Mesarya) Basin (Fig. 1). The southern part of the Mesaoria (Mesarya) Basin has been the focus of several previous studies (Ducloz, 1965; McCallum & Robertson, 1990, 1995a, b; Schirmer et al. 2010; Kinnaird, Robertson & Morris, 2011; Weber et al. 2011). In contrast, little work has been carried out on the Pliocene and Pleistocene deposits exposed in the northern part of the Mesaoria (Mesarya) Basin, and those associated with the Kyrenia Range to the north. Here, we present new facies-based evidence from the northern part of the Mesaoria (Mesarya) Basin, which we combine with comparable information from its southern part to allow the first overall synthesis of the Pliocene - Early Pleistocene tectonic-sedimentary development of this basin in its regional tectonic setting.

Figure 1.

Summary tectonic map of the Eastern Mediterranean during Pleistocene time (modified from McCay et al. 2013).

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The Mesaoria (Mesarya) Basin represents an excellent opportunity to study facies and depositional processes within a tectonically active sedimentary basin, which was influenced by rising landmasses to the north and the south, within a regional collisional setting. The northern margin of the basin was bounded by the Kyrenia Range lineament, and the southern margin by the Troodos Massif (Fig. 1).

The collision of the Eratosthenes Seamount (Fig. 1) with the Cyprus Trench to the south of Cyprus is inferred to have been a major tectonic control of the surface uplift of the Troodos Massif during Pleistocene time, within a regional setting of incipient continental collision of the African and Eurasian plates (Robertson, 1977, 1990, 1998; Robertson & Dixon, 1984; Poole, Shimmield & Robertson, 1990; Poole & Robertson, 1998; Kempler, 1998; Kinnaird, Robertson & Morris, 2011; Kinnaird & Robertson, 2013). Recently, it has been inferred that the collision also affected the Kyrenia Range further north (Palamakumbura et al. 2016b). Other tectonic models have postulated late-stage continental collisional setting (Calon, Aksu & Hall, 2005), regional strike-slip/transpression (Harrison et al. 2004) or slab break-off during late-stage subduction (Schildgen