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Tectonic reversal of the western Doruneh Fault System: Implications for Central Asian tectonics
Author(s) -
Javadi Hamid Reza,
Esterabi Ashtiani Marzieh,
Guest Bernard,
Yassaghi Ali,
Ghassemi Mohammad Reza,
Shahpasandzadeh Majid,
Naeimi Amir
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
tectonics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.465
H-Index - 134
eISSN - 1944-9194
pISSN - 0278-7407
DOI - 10.1002/2015tc003931
Subject(s) - sinistral and dextral , geology , neogene , seismology , strike slip tectonics , tectonics , inversion (geology) , fault (geology) , paleontology , structural basin
The left‐lateral Doruneh Fault System (DFS) bounds the north margin of the Central Iranian microplate and has played an important role in the structural evolution of the Turkish‐Iranian plateau. The western termination of the DFS is a sinistral synthetic branch fault array that shows clear kinematic evidence of having undergone recent slip sense inversion from a dextral array to a sinistral array in the latest Neogene or earliest Quaternary. Similarly, kinematic evidence from the Anarak Metamorphic complex suggests that this complex initially developed at a transpressive left‐stepping termination of the DFS and that it was inverted in the latest Neogene to a transtensional fault termination. The recognition that the DFS and other faults in NE Iran were inverted from dextral to sinistral strike slip in the latest Neogene and the likely connection between the DFS and the Herat Fault of Afghanistan suggests that prior to the latest Miocene, all of the north Iranian and northern Afghan ranges were part of a distributed dextral fault network that extended from the west Himalayan syntaxes to the western Alborz. Also, the recognition that regional slip sense inversion occurred across northern and northeastern Iran after the latest Miocene invalidates tectonic models that extrapolate Pleistocene to recent fault slip kinematics and rates back beyond this time.