page_title: Geography of Turkey
section_title: Geology
hierarchical_section_title: Geography of Turkey / Geology
caption_attribution_description: العربية: إسطنبول، تُركيا: تقاطع أوروپَّا وآسيا التُقطت هذه الصُورة بِواسطة كاميرا رقميَّة من قِبل أعضاء طاقم محطَّة الفضاء الدُوليَّة بِتاريخ 16 نيسان (أبريل) سنة 2004م. عندما التُقطت هذه الصُورة، لُوحظ وُجود تيَّارات مائيَّة قويَّة تحملُ مياه البحر الأسود العكرة عبر مضيق البوسفور وإلى قلب بحر مرمرة. الهضاب الوعرة شمال المدينة عبارة عن غاباتٍ كثيفة تحتوي على آبارٍ حيويَّةٍ كثيرة. لاحظ مطار مُصطفى كمال أتاتورك الدولي جنوب غرب المدينة على مقرُبةٍ من أسفل الصُورة، بالإضافة إلى جُزر الأميرات الفاتنة في بحر مرمرة، والممر المائي والمرفأ المُتعرِّج على الضفَّة الغربيَّة الشهر باسم القرن الذهبي. تحملُ هذه الصُورة الفضائيَّة الرقم التسلسُلي ISS008-E-21752، وقد أُخذت بِواسطة كاميرا كوداك DCS760 رقميَّة مُزوَّدة بِعدسة قياسها 200-مم، وقد تمَّ تزويد الطاقم بها من خِلال مُختبر مُراقبة الأرض، في مركز جونسون الفضائي. تُساهمُ محطَّة الفضاء الدُوليَّة بِدعم المُختبر في مُساعدة رُوَّادُ الفضاء على التقاط صُورٍ للأرض ذات أهميَّة قُصوى للعُلماء وعامَّة الناس، وفي إطلاق تلك الصُور بشكلٍ حُرٍ على شبكة الإنترنت. يُمكن الاطلاع على المزيد من الصُور التي التقطها الرُوَّاد والفلكيُّون في موقع بوَّابة التصوير الفضائي لِلأرض. English: Istanbul, Turkey: The Crossroads of Europe and Asia This digital camera image was taken by the crew of the International Space Station on April 16, 2004. When this image was taken, strong currents carried turbid coastal waters from the Black Sea through the Strait and into the Sea of Marmara. The rugged uplands to the north of the city are forested and contain vital reservoirs. Note Ataturk airport southwest of the city near the bottom of the image, the picturesque Prince Islands in the Sea of Marmara, and the sinuous waterway and harbor on the western shore known as the Golden Horn. Astronaut photograph ISS008-E-21752 was taken with a Kodak DCS760 digital camera equipped with an 200-mm lens, and is provided by the Earth Observations Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Français&#160;: Istambul, Turquie&#160;: le carrefour de l'Europe et de l'Asie Photo numérique prise de la Station Spatiale Internationale le 16 avril 2004. Au moment où la photo a été prise, un fort courant amenait des eaux troubles de la Mer Noire (haut de l'image) vers la Mer de Marmara à travers le Bosphore. Les terrains vallonnés au nord de la ville sont couverts de forêts et contiennent des reservoirs vitaux. On peut également noter l'aéroport Atatürk proche du bas de l'image, les pittoresques îles du Prince dans la Mer de Marmara, et le sinueux port de la côte ouest d'Istambul nommé la Corne d'Or. Photo ISS008-E-21752 prise par un Kodak DCS760 caméra digitale avec un focale de 200mm, fournie par l'Earth Observations Laboratory du Centre spatial Johnson. Le programme de la Station Spatiale Internationale permet de prendre des images de la Terre étant utiles aux scientifiques et au public, et les rend disponible gratuitement sur Internet. Des images supplémentaires prises par les astronautes et les cosmonautes sont accessibles par le NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Español: Estambul, Turquía: punto de encuentro entre Europa y Asia Esta fotografía digital la capturó la tripulación de la Estación Espacial Internacional el 16 de abril de 2004. Cuando se tomó la imagen, fuertes corrientes transportaban aguas costeras turbias provenientes del mar Negro a través del Estrecho hacia el mar de Mármara. Los territorios escarpados hacia el norte de la ciudad son zonas boscosas y contienen reservas vitales. Es posible observar el aeropuerto de Atatürk ―situado al sudoeste de la ciudad, en la parte inferior de la imagen―, las pintorescas islas Príncipe del mar de Mármara, así como la sinuosa vía navegable y el puerto del litoral occidental conocido como el Cuerno Dorado. La fotografía astronáutica ISS008-E-21752 se realizó mediante una cámara digital Kodak DCS760 equipada con un lente de 200&#160;mm y fue provista por el Laboratorio de Observaciones Terrestres del Centro Espacial Johnson (JSC, por sus siglas en inglés). El programa de la Estación Espacial Internacional respalda al laboratorio para ayudar a los astronautas a tomar fotografías de la Tierra que resulten de gran utilidad tanto para científicos como para el público, y para disponibilizar estas imágenes de manera libre a través de Internet. Para observar otras imágenes capturadas por astronautas y cosmonautas, visite el Portal de Fotografía Astronáutica de la Tierra, mantenido por la NASA y el JSC.
context_page_description: Turkey is situated in Western Asia and the Balkans, bordering the Black Sea, between Bulgaria and Georgia, and bordering the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, between Greece and Syria. The geographic coordinates of the country lie at: 39°00′N 35°00′E
  The area of Turkey is 783,562 km²; land: 770,760 km², water: 9,820 km². It has an Exclusive Economic Zone of 261,654 km².
  Turkey extends more than 1,600 km from west to east but generally less than 800 km from north to south. The total area consists of about 756,816 km² in Western Asia and about 23,764 km² in Southeastern Europe.
  Anatolia is a large, roughly rectangular peninsula, situated in western half of Asiatic Turkey, while Armenian Highland occupies its eastern part and includes mount Ararat, the highest peak of Turkey. The Asiatic part of Turkey accounts for 95% of the country's area.
  Anatolia is also known as Asia Minor or the Anatolian Plateau. The term Anatolia is most frequently used in specific reference to the large, semiarid central plateau, which is rimmed by hills and mountains that in many places limit access to the fertile, densely settled coastal regions.
context_section_description: Turkey's varied landscapes are the product of a wide variety of tectonic processes that have shaped Anatolia over millions of years and continue today as evidenced by frequent earthquakes and occasional volcanic eruptions. Except for a relatively small portion of its territory along the Syrian border that is a continuation of the Arabian Platform, Turkey geologically is part of the great Alpide belt that extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the Himalaya Mountains. This belt was formed during the Paleogene Period, as the Arabian, African, and Indian continental plates began to collide with the Eurasian plate. This process is still at work today as the African Plate converges with the Eurasian Plate and the Anatolian Plate escapes towards the west and southwest along strike-slip faults. These are the North Anatolian Fault Zone, which forms the present day plate boundary of Eurasia near the Black Sea coast, and the East Anatolian Fault Zone, which forms part of the boundary of the North Arabian Plate in the southeast. As a result, Turkey lies on one of the world's seismically most active regions.
  However, many of the rocks exposed in Turkey were formed long before this process began. Turkey contains outcrops of Precambrian rocks, (more than 520 million years old; Bozkurt et al., 2000). The earliest geological history of Turkey is poorly understood, partly because of the problem of reconstructing how the region has been tectonically assembled by plate motions. Turkey can be thought of as a collage of different pieces (possibly terranes) of ancient continental and oceanic lithosphere stuck together by younger igneous, volcanic and sedimentary rocks.
  During the Mesozoic era (about 250 to 66 million years ago) a large ocean (Tethys Ocean), floored by oceanic lithosphere existed in-between the supercontinents of Gondwana and Laurasia (which lay to the south and north respectively; Robertson & Dixon, 2006). This large oceanic plate was consumed at subduction zones (see subduction zone). At the subduction trenches the sedimentary rock layers that were deposited within the prehistoric Tethys Ocean buckled, were folded, faulted and tectonically mixed with huge blocks of crystalline basement rocks of the oceanic lithosphere. These blocks form a very complex mixture or mélange of rocks that include mainly serpentinite, basalt, dolerite and chert (e.g. Bergougnan, 1975). The Eurasian margin, now preserved in the Pontides (the Pontic Mountains along the Black Sea coast), is thought to have been geologically similar to the Western Pacific region today (e.g. Rice et al., 2006). Volcanic arcs (see volcanic arc) and backarc basins (see back-arc basin) formed and were emplaced onto Eurasia as ophiolites (see ophiolite) as they collided with microcontinents (literally relatively small plates of continental lithosphere; e.g. Ustaomer and Robertson, 1997). These microcontinents had been pulled away from the Gondwanan continent further south. Turkey is therefore made up from several different prehistorical microcontinents.
  During the Cenozoic folding, faulting and uplifting, accompanied by volcanic activity and intrusion of igneous rocks was related to major continental collision between the larger Arabian and Eurasian plates (e.g. Robertson & Dixon, 1984).
  Present-day earthquakes range from barely perceptible tremors to major movements measuring five or higher on the open-ended Richter scale. Turkey's most severe earthquake in the twentieth century occurred in Erzincan on the night of December 28–29, 1939; it devastated most of the city and caused an estimated 160,000 deaths. Earthquakes of moderate intensity often continue with sporadic aftershocks over periods of several days or even weeks. The most earthquake-prone part of Turkey is an arc-shaped region stretching from the general vicinity of Kocaeli to the area north of Lake Van on the border with Armenia and Georgia.
  Turkey's terrain is structurally complex. A central massif composed of uplifted blocks and downfolded troughs, covered by recent deposits and giving the appearance of a plateau 
caption: Istanbul and the Bosphorus
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