Abstract In the Central Sakarya area of Turkey there are two main Alpine continental units, separated by a south verging ophiolitic complex which represents the root zone of the İzmir-Ankara Suture Belt. The Central Sakarya Terrane in the north includes two ‘Variscan’ tectonic units in its basement. The Söğüt Metamorphic rocks represent a Variscan ensimatic arc complex and the Tepeköy Metamorphic rocks are characteristically a forearc-trench complex. The unconformably overlying Triassic Soğukkuyu Metamorphic rocks correspond to a part of the Karakaya Formation and are interpreted as a Triassic rift basin assemblage. These units are unconformably overlain by a transgressive sequence of Liassic-Late Cretaceous age that represents the northeastward deepening carbonate platform of the Sakarya Composite Terrane. The middle tectonic unit (the Central Sakarya Ophiolitic Complex) comprises blocks and slices of dismembered ophiolites, blueschists and basic volcanic rocks with uppermost Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous radiolarite-limestone interlayers. Geochemical data from basalt blocks suggest mid-ocean ridge basalt (MORB)- and suprasubduction-type tectonic settings within the Neotethyan İzmir-Ankara Ocean. The southern tectonic unit includes basal polyphase metamorphosed clastic rocks (Sömdiken Metamorphics), intruded by felsic and basic dykes and overlain by thick-bedded marbles. This assemblage is unconformably overlain by continental clastic rocks gradually giving way to thick-bedded recrystallized limestones, cherty limestones and pelagic limestones intercalated with radiolarites, and finally by a thick high pressure-low temperature (HP-LT) metamorphic synorogenic flysch sequence. This succession is identical to the passive continental margin sequences of the Tauride Platform. It is suggested that this passive margin was subducted during the Late Cretaceous in an intraoceanic subduction zone and affected by HP-LT metamorphism. The emplacement of the allochthonous oceanic assemblages and the collision with the Central Sakarya Terrane was complete by the end of the Cretaceous.

ABSTRACT The E-W–trending Izmir-Ankara-Erzincan suture zone in northern Anatolia represents a major Neotethyan suture zone separating the Eurasian and Gondwana continental domains in the Eastern Mediterranean region. It connects with the Vardar suture in the Balkan Peninsula to the west and with the Sevan-Akera suture zone in the Lesser Caucasus to the east, making up one of the longest fossil oceanic tracts within the broader Alpine-Himalayan orogenic system. The Izmir-Ankara-Erzincan suture zone includes intact and dismembered ophiolite complexes, ophiolitic mélanges, metamorphic soles, and locally well-developed island-arc sequences. Mélange occurrences in the western and eastern parts of the Izmir-Ankara-Erzincan suture zone and structurally below the ophiolites include clasts and blocks of oceanic rocks and platform carbonates in a muddy-silty matrix, and these are generally related to the emplacement of ophiolites onto underplated passive margins. The Ankara mélange in the central Izmir-Ankara-Erzincan suture zone contains blocks and megablocks of seamounts, ocean plate stratigraphy, and high- to medium-pressure (P) rocks in a sheared serpentinite and/or graywacke matrix. These seamount, ocean plate stratigraphy, and high -P rock assemblages indicate an important contribution of plume-related magmatism during the rift-drift, seafloor spreading, and subduction zone evolution of the northern Neotethys. Seamount volcanic rocks range from enriched (E) and plume (P) mid-ocean-ridge basalt (MORB) to ocean-island basalt (OIB) in their geochemical affinities, and they are interlayered with hemipelagic sedimentary rocks and carbonates. Partially subducted seamount volcano-sedimentary rocks were subjected to high- P metamorphism and were then exhumed in a subduction channel. The Ankara mélange thus locally represents a fossil subduction channel of an arctrench system. The oldest ophiolitic rocks within the Izmir-Ankara-Erzincan suture zone are MORB-type crustal units with ages ranging from 208 Ma to 179 Ma, which mainly occur in the northernmost sections of the suture zone, near the Sakarya terrane. These ophiolites have a deformed epiclastic cover with biostratigraphic and detrital zircon ages of 153 Ma to 128 Ma. Younger ophiolites and ophiolitic units (Late Jurassic–Cretaceous) within the suture zone and in the Ankara mélange in the central Izmir-Ankara-Erzincan suture zone display a clear geochemical progression from MORB-like to island-arc tholeiite, calc-alkaline, and boninitic affinities, and they become younger in age toward the south. These ophiolites developed in an incipient arc-forearc setting of the extended upper plate of a southward-retreating Neotethyan slab. A mid- to Late Cretaceous intra-oceanic island arc was constructed above this slab and on (across the deformed) displaced Neotethyan oceanic lithosphere and the Ankara mélange. The late-stage, southward displacement and imbrication of the Izmir-Ankara-Erzincan suture zone units above the Eocene flysch deposits are a manifestation of the collision tectonics between the Sakarya terrane (Eurasia) and the Anatolide-Tauride continental block (Gondwana) in the Paleogene.

Abstract Upper Cretaceous strata at Göynük, northwestern Anatolia, Turkey, provide a geological record of the Campanian–Maastrichtian from the Sakarya Terrane along the active Neotethys margin. Shales and shaly marls with siliciclastic and volcaniclastic intercalations indicate a pelagic palaeoenvironment rich in planktonic and benthonic foraminifera and calcareous nannofossil assemblages. A composite record from the Campanian to the Maastrichtian records nannofossil standard zones UC15c (CC21) to UC20a (CC26) as well as the Globotrunanella havanensis planktonic foraminifera Zone to the Racemiguembelina fructicosa planktonic foraminifera Zone. The complete ‘mid’-Campanian to early Maastrichtian composite section can be correlated to other western Tethyan sections. The Campanian–Maastrichtian boundary is positioned between the first occurrence of the planktonic foraminifera Gansserina gansseri and the last occurrence of the nannofossil Uniplanarius trifidus . Clastic input and higher sedimentation rates constrain regional sea-level lowstands around the late Campanian calcarata Zone and the Campanian–Maastrichtian boundary, corresponding to the Campanian–Maastrichtian boundary event.

Abstract Before the Late Cretaceous opening of the Black Sea, the Central Pontides constituted part of the southern margin of Laurasia. Two features that distinguish the Central Pontides from the neighbouring Pontide regions are the presence of an extensive Lower Cretaceous submarine turbidite fan (the Çağlayan Formation) in the north, and a huge area of Jurassic–Cretaceous subduction–accretion complexes in the south. The Central Pontides comprise two terranes, the Istanbul Zone in the west and the Sakarya Zone in the east, which were amalgamated before the Late Jurassic (Kimmeridgian), most probably during the Triassic. The basement in the western Central Pontides (the Istanbul Zone) is made up of a Palaeozoic sedimentary sequence, which ends with Carboniferous coal measures and Permo-Triassic red beds. In the eastern Central Pontides, the basement consists of Permo-Carboniferous granites and an Upper Triassic forearc sequence of siliciclastic turbidites with tectonic slivers of pre-Jurassic ophiolite (the Küre Complex). The Küre Complex is intruded by Middle Jurassic granites and porphyries, which constitute the western termination of a major magmatic arc. Upper Jurassic–Lower Cretaceous shallow-marine limestones (the İnaltı Formation) lie unconformably over both the Istanbul and Sakarya sequences in the Central Pontides. Two new measured stratigraphic sections from the İnaltı Formation constrain the age of the İnaltı Formation as Kimmeridgian–Berriasian. After a period of uplift and erosion during the Valanginian and Hauterivian, the İnaltı Formation is unconformably overlain by an over 2 km-thick sequence of Barremian–Aptian turbidites. Palaeocurrent measurements and detrital zircons indicate that the major part of the turbidites was derived from the East European Platform, implying that the Black Sea was not open before the Aptian. The Çağlayan turbidites pass northwards to a coeval carbonate–clastic shelf exposed along the present Black Sea coast. In the southern part of the Central Pontides, the Lower Cretaceous turbidites were deformed and metamorphosed in the Albian. Albian times also witnessed accretion of Tethyan oceanic crustal and mantle sequences to the southern margin of Laurasia, represented by Albian eclogites and blueschists in the Central Pontides. A new depositional cycle started in the Late Cretaceous with Coniacian–Santonian red pelagic limestones, which lie unconformably over the older units. The limestones pass up into thick sequences of Santonian–Campanian arc volcanic rocks. The volcanism ceased in the middle Campanian, and the interval between late Campanian and middle Eocene is represented by a thick sequence of siliciclastic and calciclastic turbidites in the northern part of the Central Pontides. Coeval sequences in the south are shallow marine and are separated by unconformities. The marine deposition in the Central Pontides ended in the Middle Eocene as a consequence of collision of the Pontides with the Kırşehir Massif. Supplementary material: The palaeontological data (foraminifera, nannofossil and pollen) are available at: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3842359

Abstract Recent work in Central Europe, combined with emerging information about basement massifs in SE Europe and NW Turkey, permits a new look at the relationships between crustal blocks abutting the East European Craton (EEC) along the Trans-European Suture Zone (TESZ). The simplest model indicates that the end-Cambrian establishment of the Bruno-Silesian, Lysogory and Malopolska terranes close to their present location on the SW margin of the EEC formed a major promontory on this margin of the continent. Moesia may also have formed part of this block. Both late Ordovician accretion of Avalonia and early Carboniferous accretion of the Armorican Terrane Assemblage (ATA) attached new continental material around the Bruno-Silesian Promontory (BSP). Palaeozoic faunal affinities and inherited isotopic signatures similar to those of Avalonia seen in the Istanbul block of NW Turkey, and in minor thrust slices in Moravia and Romania, suggest that easternmost Avalonia was severed, on collision with the BSP, and migrated east along the southern margin of the EEC. Likewise, the similarities to the ATA of the Balkan, Istranca, Sakarya and eastern Pontides blocks suggests that more easterly components of the ATA were detached at the BSP and migrated east. All the newly accreted blocks contain similar Neoproterozoic basement indicating a peri-Gondwanan origin; Palaeozoic plume-influenced metabasite geochemistry in the Bohemian Massif may explain their progressive separation from Gondwana before their accretion to the EEC. Inherited ages from Avalonia contain a 1.5 Ga ‘Rondonian’ component arguing for proximity to the Amazonian Craton at the end of the Neoproterozoic; Armorican terranes lack such a component, suggesting that they have closer affinities with the West African Craton. Models showing the former locations of these terranes and the larger continents from which they rifted, or later became attached to, must conform to both these constraints and those provided by palaeomagnetic data. In the late Neoproterozoic and Palaeozoic, these smaller terranes, some containing Neoproterozoic ophiolitic marginal basin and magmatic arc remnants, probably fringed the end-Proterozoic supercontinent as part of a ‘Pacific-type’ margin. When this margin fragmented, most resulting fragments accreted to the EEC.