Preface and historical background to current research on foraminifera in Turkey

摘要

Turkey is located in a region where the mountain ranges consti-tutes the eastern extension of Alpide chain (text-figure la). This mountain belt is the result of repeated continental collisions re-sulting in the welding of the two mega-continents of Laurasia and Gondwana through the Mesozoic and Cenozoic. In this frame, the continental fragments involved in the Tethyan evolu-tion of Turkey are the Istanbul Zone, the Rhodope - Strandja Massif and the Sakarya continent (unified under Pontides in text-figure 1b), the Anatolide-Tauride platform, and the Ara-bian Platform, which represents the northern margin of Gond-wana. These mountain ranges extend from Turkey to India and have witnessed and recorded the closening of Tethyan ocean and isolation of Mediterranean Sea from Indian Ocean and Indo-Pacific during Early Miocene. The so-called Bitlis-Zagros suture separating the Anatolide-Tauride block and Arabian plat-form is the result of the closure of such a marine seaway be-tween Indian Ocean and Mediterranean Sea during Miocene.