Schematic tectonic reconstruction of the Anatolia subduction zone initiation event (modified from van Hinsbergen et al., 2019a,b). Shown are the new subduction zone (pink line), other active subduction zones (solid purple lines), and transform faults (red dashed lines).
The Anatolia subduction zone (also referred to as ‘Anatolian Neotethys’ or ‘southern strand of the Neotethys’) started at around 104 Ma. It initiated within the oceanic lithosphere of the Neotethys and, together with the Oman SZI event, represents the western Neotethyan subduction system. SZI has been proposed to be the consequence of fracture zone inversion (van Hinsbergen et al., 2019a, Maffione et al., 2017), though this remains a matter of debate (Agard et al., 2007; van Hinsbergen et al., 2019a).
At the time of SZI, both downgoing and overriding plates were oceanic lithosphere of the Neotethys, the overriding oceanic lithosphere has also been termed ‘Anadolu plate’ (Gürer et al., 2016). The final stages of subduction of the downgoing plate saw the arrival and accretion of continental lithosphere (the Africa-Arabia plate), including several microcontinents of ‘Greater Adria’ (Gaina et al., 2015; van Hinsbergen et al., 2019b).
For more details on the geologic record, corresponding plate reconstruction, and seismic tomography, see the SZI Database.
- Creators: Fabio Crameri, Valentina Magni, Matthew Domeier, Ágnes Király, Grace Shephard
- This version: 17.06.2025
- License: Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)
- Specific citation: These graphics from Crameri et al. (2020) are available via the open-access s-ink.org repository.
- Related reference: Crameri, F., V. Magni, M. Domeier, G.E. Shephard, K. Chotalia, G. Cooper, C. Eakin, A.G. Grima, D. Gürer, A. Király, E. Mulyukova, K. Peters, B. Robert, and M. Thielmann (2020), A transdisciplinary and community-driven database to unravel subduction zone initiation, Nature Communications, 11, 3750. doi:10.1038/s41467-020-17522-9
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