CYPRUS ARC

The Cyprus Arc, in the northeastern Mediterranean, represents the convergent zone between the African, Arabian and European plates, with the intermediate westerly escaping Aegean–Anatolian microplate. The arc is regionally characterized by south-verging thrusts related to northward subducton of the African plate. Compressional deformation initiated in the Late Cretaceous and produced several basins inner the arc, which are separated through regional rises [Biju-Duval et al., 1976]. The rather complex evolution of the region developed as an ophiolitic suture and prosecuted in Eocene and late Miocene shaping an arcuate fold-thrust belt. The compressive fault systems has been often reactivated, after the end of Miocene, by the transpressional regime [Hall et al., 2005; Calon et al., 2005; Bowman, 2001]. Generally, the different basins show defferent evolution, in both space and time. They were already mainly shaped when the Messinian Salinity Crisis started and evaporites deposited with different thickness. These basins, which were successively involved in the Plio-Quaternary tectonics, show mobilization of salt by compression or sliding, mainly occurred during the Pliocene time. The seismic facies of the MSC unconformities and units are described.