The stratigraphical position of Kemiklitepe fossil locality (Esme, Usak) revised: Implications for the Late Cenozoic sedimentary basin development and extensional tectonics in western Turkey

Abstract

Unlike earlier studies attributing the Kemiklitepe fossil locality to the Inay Group, the present study indicates that it is to be assigned to the Asartepe Formation that unconformably overlying the. Inay Group. This seems to verify the early Middle Miocene age of the Inay Group, previously determined by isotopic dating and palynological analyses. However, the early Middle Miocene age and the overall undeformed nature of the Inay Group do not concur with the regional two-stage extension model proposing a compressional phase during the Miocene/Pliocene interval. The correlation of the Asartepe Formation hearing the Kemiklitepe fossil locality further to the north indicates that a NE-SW trending fault was active during the Late Miocene. Recent Studies modelling the uplift history of the region are unconvincing because they ignore Late Miocene activity on the NE-SW trending faults and assume a timing of incision of the may Group after the Late Pliocene (similar to 3Ma) in their calculations.