Sedimentation of the Neogene–Recent Alaşehir (Gediz) continental graben system used to test alternative tectonic models for western (Aegean) Turkey

The Alaşehir (Gediz) Graben exemplifies clastic sedimentation in a long-lived continental half-graben in a semi-arid setting, developed within relatively incompetent metamorphic rocks. Early Miocene to Recent rift-related sediments are exhumed on both flanks of the graben, allowing detailed three-dimensional study. During the Early Miocene, small fan-delta lobes were shed northwards from the rugged Menderes Metamorphic Massif into a bordering lacustrine basin. During Early to Mid-Miocene time, large alluvial fans prograded northwards into this basin. Through-drainage to the Aegean Sea was established as the basin widened and filled. Discrete lobes of coarse alluvial fan sediments of latest Miocene(?)–Pliocene age, also shedding northwards, are likely to have been climatically influenced. Quaternary alluvium party infills the modern Alaşehır rift basin. The sedimentary information can be used to test two alternative tectonic models for the Alaşehır Graben. In the first model, an E–W graben bounded by high-angle faults was active during latest Miocene(?)–Recent time, whereas earlier Miocene sedimentation was controlled by N–S faulting related to a N–S compressional stress regime. In the second hypothesis, the Alaşehır Graben was initiated much earlier, in the Early Miocene and was then either continuously or episodically active until Recent. Our results, especially facies and palaeocurrent data from alluvial sediments, indicate that clastic sedimentation was controlled by mainly E–W faulting in a N–S stress regime. Assuming the Early Miocene clastic sediments are correctly dated, this supports the second (long-lived extension) model. However, rather than steady-state extension for ca. 15 Ma, the sedimentary evidence and regional context are consistent with a pulsed extension model, whereby initial Early to Mid-Miocene extension and related clastic sedimentation was followed by a second phase of extension in latest Miocene(?)–Pliocene time. The driving force of initial, Early Miocene extension was probably gravity spreading towards a south-Aegean subduction zone, whereas the inferred second extension pulse is seen as being triggered by westward “tectonic escape” of Anatolia towards the extending Aegean back-arc region.