THE ARABIA – EURASIA COLLISION ZONE IN IRAN: TECTONOSTRATIGRAPHIC AND STRUCTURAL SYNTHESIS

The Arabia – Eurasia collision zone in the central part of the Alpine – Himalayan orogenic system has had a complex deformation history since the Palaeozoic. In Iran, the collision zone consists of the Alborz‐Talesh, Kopeh Dagh and Zagros foldbelts and the intervening Central Iran area. In this review paper, we summarize the structural architecture and tectonostratigraphic characteristics of these domains and attempt to correlate regional deformation events between them. The results show that six regional‐scale deformation phases can be recognized and correlated in Iran over a time interval extending from the Late Palaeozoic to the Late Cenozoic. Late Palaeozoic rifting in northern Gondwana and subsequent oceanic spreading resulted in the separation of the Central and North Iran blocks from the Arabian Platform. These blocks later converged and collided with the southern margin of Eurasia due to the subduction of the intervening PalaeoTethys lithosphere (“Cimmerian orogeny”: Late Triassic). The convergent setting resulted in the initial development of the Alborz‐Talesh foldbelt in present‐day northern Iran, while extensional basins developed in the forebulge area in Central Iran. Continuing northward subduction of NeoTethyan oceanic lithosphere at the southern Eurasia margin produced Early Cretaceous back‐arc extension and associated volcanism in Central Iran and the Alborz‐Talesh area to the north. A phase of compressional deformation in the Late Cretaceous was related to the collision of a series of microcontinents derived from Northern Gondwana, including the Ercinjan and Bitlis massifs, with the Central Iran block, and is recorded in the Alborz‐Talesh foldbelt and in Central Iran. Further back‐arc extension in the late Paleocene – Eocene was accompanied by pervasive volcanism and volcaniclastic sedimentation throughout northern and Central Iran. The final closure of NeoTethys and convergence between the Arabian and Eurasian Plates evolved through phases of early Oligocene “soft” collision and middle Miocene “hard” collision. This was accompanied by thrusting in the internal parts of the Zagros foldbelt and by folding and subordinate thrusting in the more external parts, with related development of the flexural Mesopotamian Basin in the foreland to the SW.