The Geodynamic Implications of Passive Margin Subduction in Northwest Turkey

Abstract The number of subduction zones that facilitated the northward translation of the Anatolide‐Tauride continental terrane derived from Gondwana to the southern margin of Eurasia at the longitude of western Turkey is debated. We hypothesized that if two north dipping subduction zones facilitated incipient collision in western Turkey, a late Cretaceous arc would have formed within the Neotethys and along the southern margin of Eurasia. To determine if an island arc formed within the Neotethys we investigated the sedimentary record of the Central Sakarya basin, which was deposited along the southern margin of Eurasia from 85 to 45 million years ago. Detrital zircon deposited within the lower levels of the Central Sakarya basin (the Değirmenözü Formation) are associated with south to north‐directed paleocurrents and exhibit a unimodal late Cretaceous age peak sourced from isotopically juvenile mantle melts. Zircon maximum depositional ages from the Değirmenözü Formation cluster between 95 and 90 Ma and are 5–10 Myr older than biostratigraphic depositional ages. Between 95 and 80 Ma, a 12‐unit shift from mantle to crustal derived εHf values occurs in the overlying Yenipazar Formation. We explain the absence of Paleozoic, Eurasian‐sourced detrital zircon, the rapid shift from mantle to crustal derived εHf values, and lag time in terms of passive margin subduction within an isolated intra‐oceanic subduction zone, whose island arc was reworked from south to north into the Central Sakarya basin during incipient collision. Thus, widely outcropping late Cretaceous plutonic rocks within Eurasia must have belonged to an additional convergent margin.