The North Aegean region: a tectonic paradox?

ABSTRACT In the past two decades, several publications have been presented concerning the recent and active fault geometry, kinematics and geodynamics of the Aegean Region and particularly of the northern sector. Data and results are often contradictory and because of the complexity of the area most hypotheses and models should be considered carefully. The right‐lateral movement of the North Anatolia Fault continues into some branches of the North Aegean fault system. There, strike‐slip motion along NE–SW trending faults coexists with dip‐slip E–W trending faults in the frame of an extensional regime related to N–S crustal stretching. If we take into account the geodynamic environment of the region, several mechanical problems arise. To the east, the Aegean is compressed by the westward convergence of Anatolia, while to the south and west along the Hellenic Arc, a hemiradial compression occurs due to subduction. Although the North Anatolia–North Aegean Trough fault system resembles a restraining bend, the whole area is in fact affected by pure extension and local transtension, along NE–SW trending structures. Accordingly, the major paradox of the area and especially in the western sector (fault termination?) is the occurrence of extension where compression should regionally, or at least locally, predominate.