The Mesozoic organization of the Taurides: one or several ocean basins?

Summary The Taurides are an Alpine chain composed of both continental and oceanic units including ophiolitic massifs organized in three longitudinal belts. The Taurides are also an area of nappes, where overthrusting occurred successively from the Upper Cretaceous on and greatly modified the pre-tectonic organization. A single or a multiple ocean basin system have both been postulated. It is shown that the nappes composed of slope-basin material, ophiolites and their metamorphic soles vary from place to place in the Taurides. They exhibit a coherent organization which attests to a common origin with transport as a whole entity over the presently underlying platform units. The latter can not be continental slivers within the basin. The inferred large-scale allochthoneity is supported also by palaeontological and palaeomagnetic data, and by a consideration of the mechanisms of ocean-basin opening and obduction. We concluded that the Tauride ophiolites, the associated slope-basin and horst deposits constitute a unique set of nappes derived from a single northern oceanic basin bordered to the south by a large epi-continental platform. This basin was located north of the platform units which now constitute the Calcareous Axis of the Taurides.