Devonian shallow-water sequences from the North Gondwana coastal margin (Central and Eastern Taurides, Turkey): Sedimentology, facies and global events

Turkey is an integral part of the Alpine-Himalayan orogenic belt with a number of tectonostratigraphic units striking in an E-W direction. These belts consist of terranes of different tectonic settings, ranging from oceanic basins to active and passive continental margins. The age of incorporated units of continental margin origin ranges from the Cambrian to the Cenozoic, and includes unmetamorphosed to low-grade Devonian rocks in the Pontides, Taurides and on the Arabian Plate. This paper describes the detailed sedimentology, facies and biostratigraphy of three 900 to 1200 m thick Devonian successions in the Central and Eastern Taurides (Eceli, Halevikdere and Kocadere). During the Devonian, the Central and Eastern Taurides were situated at the northern margin of Gondwana. The sediments described were deposited on this margin in coastal to shelf environments. Despite similar large-scale trends, regional differences in the sedimentary sequences can be distinguished, especially for the lower part of the Devonian. For the first time, sufficient biostratigraphical data have been recovered to allow the successions to be subdivided at a stage scale, permitting their approximate correlation and comparison with the regional lithostratigraphy. The temporal development of sedimentary processes, facies changes, and hinterland signatures recorded in the individual sections have been reconstructed, allowing their correspondence to global events to be recognized and discussed for the first time. The palaeobiogeographic distribution of various organisms within these succession suggests a comparatively narrow sea ('Rheic Ocean') between Laurasia and Gondwana/Peri-Gondwana during the Devonian. © 2009 International Association for Gondwana Research.Bundesministerium für Bildung und ForschungThis paper is a contribution to DEVEC-TR, a project related to IGCP Project 499 ‘Devonian land–sea interaction: Evolution of ecosystems and climate (DEVEC)’. The TÜBITAK and BMBF are kindly acknowledged for funding the project. Thanks are also due to the technical staff of the participating institutions (Universities of Istanbul, Adana and Mersin, MTA, TPAO, Senckenberg Forschungsinstitute und Naturmuseen) for processing, preparing and analyzing the vast amount of samples taken during the two field campaigns. Comments and remarks of two reviewers improved the paper and are gratefully acknowledged. Alan Lord (Senckenberg Forschungsinstitut und Naturmuseum Frankfurt) is gratefully acknowledged for the helpful comments and linguistic improvements. Appendix