Distribution and evolution of messinian evaporites in Cilicia basin, Eastern Mediterranean

With the discovery of the thick messinian evoporite deposits during Deep Marine Drilling Project Leg XIII, Mediterranean Sea has been studied since the last quarter of the 20th century. Thirty-five seismic reflection profiles were collected in Cilicia Basin, around Göksu Delta, in the East Mediterreanean Project at 2008. Eleven of these profiles were used for investigating the distribution and evolut,on of the messinian evoporites in the study area.First of all, seismic data were processed by using the ProMAX software. The basic seismic processing steps were applied to data such as filtering, velocity analysis and stack to increase the S/N ratio. Finally, the Kirchhoff migration method was used to correct the slopes and coordinates of the geological structures.After the data processing step, the data were interpreted stratigraphycally and they were correlated with the Seyhan-1 and Karataş-1 wells which are the nearest wells to the study area. Also Plio-Quaternary and Messinian thickness maps were prepared. According to these thickness maps, it is obvious that the Cilicia Basin was closed and the water entrance was provided by only the west side during Mesinian Salinity Crisis. Moreover, M reflector which points the top boundary of the Messinian, corresponds with the sea floor morphology. This corresponding shows that tectonic forces could not effect strongly to the study area since Mesinnian.Seismic profiles show that north-west side of the study area is controlled by normal faults and South-East side of the area is dominated by trust faults. It is thought that salt tectonic is the source of the normal faults located at the NE. The salt diapirs around normal faults are one of the evidences to support the existence of the salt tectonic.As a summary, it is seen that there are two faulting trends in the Cilicia Basin; 1) The faults which are related with compression, 2) The faults related with the result of the movement of salt structures.