Paleomagnetic rotations in the Late Miocene sequence from the Cankiri Basin (Central Anatolia, Turkey): the role of strike-slip tectonics

In this paper, new paleomagnetic and anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility (AMS) data from Miocene continental units of the Cankiri Basin are presented, with the main goal of providing additional constraints on its deformational and rotational history during the Late Cenozoic. AMS data indicate a tectonic origin for the magnetic fabric, suggesting that Upper Miocene units were still involved in the deformation processes. Paleomagnetic data show that tectonic rotations in the Cankiri Basin do not show a symmetrical distribution along the opposite edges of the basin, as expected from the observed Omega-shape. In particular, by combining our data with those already published, we observe that tectonic rotations increase from the southern portion of the basin toward the north and from the central part toward the basin margins. This distribution reasonably matches with a post-Late Miocene reactivation of the Cankiri Basin margin fault systems, possibly related to the activity of the right-lateral North Anatolian strike-slip fault. In this tectonic interpretation, the complex pattern of paleomagnetic rotations appears to be connected with a local block rotation mechanism due to the activity of faults with strike-slip components of motion along the tectonic margins of the Cankiri Basin