@article{MuellerLichtCampbelletal.2019, author = {Mueller, Megan A. and Licht, Alexis and Campbell, C. and Ocakoglu, F. and Taylor, Marc Hollis and Burch, L. and Ugrai, Tamas and Kaya, M. and Kurtoglu, B. and Coster, P. M. C. and Metais, Mustafa Y{\"u}cel and Beard, Kenneth Christopher}, title = {Collision Chronology Along the Izmir-Ankara-Erzincan Suture Zone: Insights From the Saricakaya Basin, Western Anatolia}, series = {Tectonics}, volume = {38}, journal = {Tectonics}, number = {10}, publisher = {American Geophysical Union}, address = {Washington}, issn = {0278-7407}, doi = {10.1029/2019TC005683}, pages = {3652 -- 3674}, year = {2019}, abstract = {Debate persists concerning the timing and geodynamics of intercontinental collision, style of syncollisional deformation, and development of topography and fold-and-thrust belts along the >1,700-km-long Izmir-Ankara-Erzincan suture zone (IAESZ) in Turkey. Resolving this debate is a necessary precursor to evaluating the integrity of convergent margin models and kinematic, topographic, and biogeographic reconstructions of the Mediterranean domain. Geodynamic models argue either for a synchronous or diachronous collision during either the Late Cretaceous and/or Eocene, followed by Eocene slab breakoff and postcollisional magmatism. We investigate the collision chronology in western Anatolia as recorded in the sedimentary archives of the 90-km-long Saricakaya Basin perched at shallow structural levels along the IAESZ. Based on new zircon U-Pb geochronology and depositional environment and sedimentary provenance results, we demonstrate that the Saricakaya Basin is an Eocene sedimentary basin with sediment sourced from both the IAESZ and Sogut Thrust fault to the south and north, respectively, and formed primarily by flexural loading from north-south shortening along the syncollisional Sogut Thrust. Our results refine the timing of collision between the Anatolides and Pontide terranes in western Anatolia to Maastrichtian-Middle Paleocene and Early Eocene crustal shortening and basin formation. Furthermore, we demonstrate contemporaneous collision, deformation, and magmatism across the IAESZ, supporting synchronous collision models. We show that regional postcollisional magmatism can be explained by renewed underthrusting instead of slab breakoff. This new IAESZ chronology provides additional constraints for kinematic, geodynamic, and biogeographic reconstructions of the Mediterranean domain.}, language = {en} } @article{LichtDupontNivetWinetal.2018, author = {Licht, Alexis and Dupont-Nivet, Guillaume and Win, Zaw and Swe, Hnin Hnin and Kaythi, Myat and Roperch, Pierrick and Ugrai, Tamas and Littell, Virginia and Park, Diana and Westerweel, Jan and Jones, Dominic and Poblete, Fernando and Aung, Day Wa and Huang, Huasheng and Hoorn, Carina and Sein, Kyaing}, title = {Paleogene evolution of the Burmese forearc basin and implications for the history of India-Asia convergence}, series = {Geological Society of America bulletin}, volume = {131}, journal = {Geological Society of America bulletin}, number = {5-6}, publisher = {American Institute of Physics}, address = {Boulder}, issn = {0016-7606}, doi = {10.1130/B35002.1}, pages = {730 -- 748}, year = {2018}, abstract = {The geological history of the Burmese subduction margin, where India obliquely subducts below Indochina, remains poorly documented although it is key to deciphering geodynamic models for the evolution of the broader Tibetan-Himalayan orogen. Various scenarios for the evolution of the orogen have been proposed, including a collision of India with Myanmar in the Paleogene, a significant extrusion of Myanmar and Indochina from the India-Asia collision zone, or very little change in paleogeography and subduction regime since the India-Asia collision. This article examines the history of the Burmese forearc basin, with a particular focus on Eocene-Oligocene times to reconstruct the evolution of the Burmese margin during the early stages of the India-Asia collision. We report on sedimentological, geochemical, petrographical, and geochronological data from the Chindwin Basin-the northern part of the Burmese forearc-and integrate these results with previous data from other basins in central Myanmar. Our results show that the Burmese margin acted as a regular Andean-type subduction margin until the late middle Eocene, with a forearc basin that was open to the trench and fed by the denudation of the Andean volcanic arc to the east. We show that the modern tectonic configuration of central Myanmar formed 39-37 million years ago, when the Burmese margin shifted from an Andean-type margin to a hyper-oblique margin. The forearc basin was quickly partitioned into individual pull-apart basins, bounded to the west by a quickly emerged accretionary prism, and to the east by synchronously exhumed basement rocks, including coeval high-grade metamorphics. We interpret this shift as resulting from the onset of strike-slip deformation on the subduction margin leading to the formation of a paleo-sliver plate, with a paleo fault system in the accretionary prism, pull-apart basins in the forearc, and another paleo fault system in the backarc. This evolution implies that hyper-oblique convergence below the Burmese margin is at least twice older than previously thought. Our results reject any India-Asia convergence scenario involving an early Paleogene collision of India with Myanmar. In contrast, our results validate conservative geodynamic models arguing for a close-to-modern precollisional paleogeometry for the Indochina Peninsula, and indicate that any post-collisional rotation of Indochina, if it occurred at all, must have been achieved by the late middle Eocene.}, language = {en} }