The Oligocene-Recent evolution of the Mesaoria Basin (Cyprus) and its western marine extension, Eastern Mediterranean

The Neogene stratigraphic and structural evolution of the Mesaoria Basin and Kyrenia Range is studied using multi-channel seismic reflection profiles from their western marine extension. The region north of the front of the Troodos-Larnaka culmination constitutes a crustal-scale S-verging, thick-skinned linked imbricate thrust system comprising most of the forearc region north of the present-day Cyprus Arc. In the Eocene, thrust activity gave rise to the prominent growth of the Troodos-Larnaka culmination and concurrent imbrication further north in the forearc region, creating the root of the Kyrenia fold/thrust belt. Northward retreat of the active thrust front in the Oligocene–Miocene led to the development of a foredeep across the root of the Kyrenia fold/thrust belt with a prominent depositional foredeep ramp situated at the current front of this belt. Crustal contraction continued in the Miocene along the front of the Troodos-Larnaka culmination leading to the progressive shoaling of the basin, carried on the backlimb of this culmination. In the late Miocene, thrust activity became widespread in the forearc region with structural contraction being focussed on the Kyrenia fold/thrust belt. Pliocene thrust activity in the forearc region is primarily focussed on the Kyrenia fold/thrust belt with much uplift occurring in the mid-late Pliocene, but continuing to the present. The Mesaoria Basin evolved in the Miocene to Pliocene as a piggy-back basin. Our data negate earlier models that postulate a phase of crustal extension in the forearc region during the Oligocene to mid-late Pliocene.