A multistory gigantic subaerial debris flow in an active fault scarp in NW Anatolia, Turkey

Mass instability in the uplifting footwall blocks of normal faults involves a range of regional and local factors including, among others, climatic setting, topography, lithology and particularly ground shaking during earthquakes. Morphological and sedimentological investigations backed by 14 C dating on a huge debris flow and its zone of depreciation provided favorable insights for dynamics and causative factors of this mass wasting. Our observations showed that İsmetpaşa Debris Flow with a volume of 96 km 3 involves three individual flows of decreasing significance in the late Pleistocene—Holocene period. The primary flow occurred in relation to a huge landslide developed on highly fractured and altered basaltic lavas near the crest of fault scarp c. 18.7 ka BP and probably conditioned by high precipitation rates in the early Interglacial. Although, most of the blocky debris flow transferred into the neighboring graben to form a 2 km wide debris fan, some remnant blocks and flow-induced valley-side slickensides can still be observed in the zone of depreciation. One km long secondary flow was sourced from the remnants of primary flow and was realized at 7.9 ka BP in another humid period of the Holocene. The third, though minor (less than 100 m long), mobilization of the flow occurred on one of the steep faces of secondary flow in 1960s when the mean precipitation was higher than that of today. Good coincidence of timing of individual debris flows with the humid phases of the late Pleistocene—Holocene period showed that long-term antecedent precipitation is the dominant causative factor

Debris · Debris flow · Fault (geology · Fault scarp · Geomorphology · Holocene · Landslide · Mass wasting · Pleistocene · Slumping · Subaerial · earthquake and tectonic studies · Geology and Paleoclimatology Research · Landslides and related hazards · Geology · Oceanography · Paleontology

• Palaeolithic occupation of the Anatolian High Plateau during a cold period

  Open Access•Faruk Ocakoğlu, Berkay Dinçer et al.•Geoarchaeology•2018

  Añadir item

• Late-Holocene evolution of a floodplain impounded by the Smrdutá landslide, Carpathian Mountains (Czech Republic)

  Open Access•Tomáš Pánek, Veronika Smolková et al.•The Holocene•2012

  Añadir item

• The Holocene climatic optimum and pollen records of sapropel 1 in the eastern Mediterranean, 9000–6000BP

  Open Access•Martine Rossignol-Strick, Martine Rossignol‐strick•Quaternary Science Reviews•1999

  Añadir item

• Sea–land oxygen isotopic relationships from planktonic foraminifera and speleothems in the Eastern Mediterranean region and their implication for paleorainfall during interglacial intervals

  Open Access•Miryam Bar-Matthews, Miryam Bar‐Matthews et al.•Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta•2003

  Añadir item

• A review of palaeoclimates and palaeoenvironments in the Levant and Eastern Mediterranean from 25,000 to 5000 years BP

  Open Access•Stuart A Robinson, Stuart Black et al.•Quaternary Science Reviews•2006

  Añadir item