Multiple rifting pulses and sedimentation pattern in the Çameli Basin, southwestern Anatolia, Turkey

Development of the Çameli graben commenced in the Vallesian time (early Tortonian), and is marked by alluvial-fan, fluvial and lacustrine depositional systems, with freshwater molluscan fauna. A second pulse of tectonic extension occurred in the late Ruscinian time (early-middle Pliocene), producing a new normal fault that split the basin longitudinally into two compartments. The lake environment expanded and deepened, coastal peat-forming mires developed and abundant mammal fauna appeared by the early Villanian time (middle Pliocene), with the lacustrine deposits onlapping the basin-margin and intrabasinal fault escarpments. The lacustrine environment subsequently shrank, as the progradation of axial river deltas and basin-margin fan deltas caused water shallowing and shoreline regression. A third pulse of extension occurred at the end of Villanian time (late Pliocene), when the development of a new generation of normal faults further split the basin into still narrower half-graben compartments. The third pulse of rifting is estimated to have accounted for little more than 10% of the sub-basinal crustal extension, but caused the most striking changes in the basin palaeogeography and drainage pattern. The inward development of the successive normal faults indicated a high-rate crustal extension. This is the first regional case study of a terrestrial neotectonic graben employing detailed sedimentary facies analysis and mammal biostratigraphy and providing a time-stratigraphic framework for the rifting pulses in western Anatolia.