Details

• Lecturer: Hanneke Heida, Marie-Curie PhD Student (ICTJA-CSIC)
• Date: 12 November 2018 12:00h
• Place: Sala d’Actes de l’Institut de Ciències de la Terra Jaume Almera (ICTJA-CSIC)
• Further information: Dr. Daniel García-Castellanos (ICTJA-CSIC)

**This seminar is based on the Heida’s master thesis recently finished at University of Utrecht

Abstract

The Arabia-Eurasia collision zone is an area of relatively young continental collision of which the kinematic evolution is poorly understood due to complex interactions of blocks accreting to the Eurasian plate after subduction of various oceanic domains, most notably the Paleotethys and Neotethys. The way in which convergence between the Arabian and European plates was accommodated and even the timing of collision is poorly constrained. Quantifying the mechanisms and processes active in the collision zone which extends from the Zagros mountains in the southwest of Iran to the Greater Caucasus in the northwest is a crucial step towards better understanding this young collision zone. In my master thesis, I constrain the amount of convergence accommodated by oroclinal bending and block rotation of the Talesh mountains to the west of the South Caspian Basin, in order to estimate the size of a reconstructed Greater Caucasus Basin north of the Talesh. New paleomagnetic data from the Eocene volcanics in the Talesh in NW Iran and Azerbaijan combined with previously published paleomagnetic and structural data allow us to provide a new subdivision of blocks undergoing variable rotation. With these new independent constraints on plate movements we present a new plate reconstruction, allowing for a more detailed understanding of the kinematic development of the Arabia-Eurasia collision zone since the Eocene, providing crucial insight into a young and still active collision zone.