Tectonic burial and exhumation cycles tracked by muscovite and K-feldspar ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar thermochronology in a strike-slip fault zone, central Turkey

Muscovite and K-feldspar ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar ages from the eastern margin of the Niǧde massif in central Anatolia track the timing of initial exhumation, reburial, and final exhumation and cooling of metamorphic rocks deformed within a strike-slip fault zone. Although the ages of initial and final cooling were known from previous studies, our new results document the timing of the reheating/reburial event. Muscovite from four of eight gneiss samples have Late Cretaceous ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar ages that date initial cooling at ~75Ma. The remaining samples have perturbed spectra that climb to Late Cretaceous ages with increasing extraction temperatures during analysis. These perturbed samples are located beneath a faulted unconformity overlain by Paleogene sedimentary deposits that were derived in part from the metamorphic rocks, then buried, metamorphosed, and deformed under greenschist facies conditions. Samples close to the faulted unconformity are more perturbed than structurally deeper samples. The age of the thermal perturbation is determined at 30±5Ma using multi-diffusion domain modeling of K-feldspar ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar data from two gneiss samples, one located close to the unconformity and one at a structurally deeper level. Muscovite ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar results and modeled K-feldspar temperature-time histories show that the eastern margin of the Niǧde massif experienced a reheating event that peaked at ~30Ma. The thermal pulse has been attributed to reburial associated with transpression in the Ecemiş segment of the Central Anatolian Fault Zone along the eastern margin of the Niǧde massif. Activity of this fault zone may represent a far-field expression of the onset of collision of Arabia with Eurasia in SE Anatolia.