Petra Lepetit, Lothar Viereck, John D. A. Piper, Masafumi Sudo, Ali Gurel, Ibrahim Copuroglu, Manuela Gruber, Bernhard Mayer, Michael Koch, Orhan Tatar, Halil Gursoy

• Magmatism forming the Central Anatolian Volcanic Province of Cappadocia, central Turkey, records the last phase of Neotethyan subduction after similar to 11 Ma. Thirteen large calc-alkaline ignimbrite sheets form marker bands within the volcano-sedimentary succession (the Urgup Formation) and provide a robust chronostratigraphy for paleoecologic evaluation of the interleaved paleosols. This paper evaluates the chronologic record in the context of the radiometric, magnetostratigraphic and lithostratigraphic controls. Previous inconsistencies relating primarily to K/Ar evidence were reason for the initiation of an integrated study which includes Ar-40/Ar-39 dating, palaeomagnetic and stratigraphic evidence. The newly determined Ar-40/Ar-39-ages (Lepetit, 2010) are in agreement with Ar/Ar and U/Pb data meanwhile published by Pauquette and Le Pennec (2012) and Aydar et al. (2012). The Ar-40/Ar-39-ages restrict the end of the Urgup Formation to the late Miocene. The paleosol sequence enclosed by the ignimbrites is thus restricted to theMagmatism forming the Central Anatolian Volcanic Province of Cappadocia, central Turkey, records the last phase of Neotethyan subduction after similar to 11 Ma. Thirteen large calc-alkaline ignimbrite sheets form marker bands within the volcano-sedimentary succession (the Urgup Formation) and provide a robust chronostratigraphy for paleoecologic evaluation of the interleaved paleosols. This paper evaluates the chronologic record in the context of the radiometric, magnetostratigraphic and lithostratigraphic controls. Previous inconsistencies relating primarily to K/Ar evidence were reason for the initiation of an integrated study which includes Ar-40/Ar-39 dating, palaeomagnetic and stratigraphic evidence. The newly determined Ar-40/Ar-39-ages (Lepetit, 2010) are in agreement with Ar/Ar and U/Pb data meanwhile published by Pauquette and Le Pennec (2012) and Aydar et al. (2012). The Ar-40/Ar-39-ages restrict the end of the Urgup Formation to the late Miocene. The paleosol sequence enclosed by the ignimbrites is thus restricted to the late Miocene, the most intense formation of pedogene calcretes correlating with the Messinian Salinity Crisis.…