Geochemical characteristics of ophiolitic rocks from the southern margin of the Sivas basin and their implications for the Inner Tauride Ocean, Central-Eastern Turkey

Abstract Number of dismembered ophiolite bodies crop out between Sivas and Malatya on the top of the Eastern Tauride platform in the central-eastern Turkey. One of which at the southern margin of the Sivas basin in the Tecer Mountain area comprises melange and the lower part of an oceanic lithospheric section on top of the Tauride platform. The mantle tectonites are characterized by variably serpentinized harzburgites and dunites, and are intruded by numerous isolated dykes. The gabbroic cumulates consist of olivine gabbro, gabbro and gabbronorite. The major and trace element geochemistry of the mafic cumulate rocks suggests that the primary magma was compositionally similar to those observed in modern island-arc tholeiitic sequences. The isolated dykes are exclusively basaltic in composition and display geochemically two distinct subgroups: Group I is represented by high TiO2 (.87–1.47 wt.%) and other incompatible elements, whereas Group II is characterized by low TiO2 (.36–.66 wt.%) and other incompatible elements. The Group I isolated diabase dykes have flat to slightly LREE-depleted profiles (La/YbN = .32–.79), whereas the Group II isolated diabase dykes are more depleted in general and have a LREE-depleted character (La/YbN = .19–.49). This suggests that the isolated dykes were derived from an island arc tholeiitic magma (Nb/Y = .02–.05) with different degrees of partial melting (Group II > Group I) and relatively high oxygen fugacity in intra-oceanic subduction zone. The ophiolitic rocks in the study area may well be compared with the Divriği ophiolite to the southeast. All the evidence suggests that the isolated dykes in the Tecer Mountain area differ from the alkaline isolated dykes cutting the Divriği ophiolite. Since the late stage dykes (~76 Ma) in the Divriği area are alkaline, the tholeiitic isolated dykes in the present study should have been emplaced prior to the alkaline dykes during Late Cretaceous SSZ-spreading (~90 Ma) within the Inner Tauride Ocean.