North Cyprus aspects of geology

North Cyprus Aspects of Geology - Backgroung of Geology of North and South Cyprus

ASPECTS OF GEOLOGY
The theory of plate tectonics regards the continents as rigid plates, the upper parts of which are formed of granitic material. That, in turn, rests on the outermost rigid shell of the Earth, the lithosphere, which on average is some 200km thick and is divided into seven major and many minor plates. New lithosphere is formed as the oceanic ridges such as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the plates, many with continents upon them, have to move. This is plate tectonics; and the generation of new ocean crust or lithosphere is known as sea-floor spreading. If an oceanic part of a plate collides with a continental part or with another oceanic one, the younger one glides back into the Earth in a process called subduction (literally from the Latin, to be carried under). If continents collide they just hit head on, very much in the manner of a hammer on an anvil. On Cyprus nearly all rocks are less than approx. 200 million (around) years old (Ma is the scientific abbreviation for a million years the geologists' usual time scales). During this time the continent of Africa (area) has been moving north eastwards at a speed of about two centimetres a year and Eurasia eastwards at about three centimetres a year. As they came closer over the past 100 Ma the east-west elongated ocean that once lay between them, the Tethys, got smaller and smaller. The Mediterranean and the southern part of the Gulf of Oman are all that is left of Tethys (who, in mythology, was one of Neptune's daughters). So, Cyprus and North Cyprus is rather a special case. Since it lies in the confrontation zone between two huge plates, it gives geologists an opportunity to observe the results of plate movements. The Troodos mountains of central Cyprus were formed as an ocean ridge at depths of 2 to 4km, beginning about 85 to 75 Ma ago, in the Upper Cretaceous period. They are ideal for the study of how new ocean crust is formed, and much work has taken place in the last ten years on international research' projects. Due to the oblique collision between Africa and Eurasia a Cyprus platelet, probably just the size of the island, broke away about 75 Ma ago and has rotated anti-clockwise by some 90° to occupy its present position; but authorities differ as to how many Ma ago it was that the Troodos igneous rocks were uplifted to appear as an island above the waves of Tethys. There is an Ottoman Turkish name for the Troodos Karlidag (the snow-mountain).

Most of the mountain chains of the world have been produced by the movements of these plates; the subduction and "then collision of the African and Indian plates producing the mountains of Switzerland, Italy, the Balkans and Asia Minor, and also the Taurus mountains of southern Turkey and the Himalayas. The Alpine chain of which the Kyrenia range is a part was caused by the folding and fracturing of the sedimentary rocks that formed on the ocean (Tethys) floor between Africa and Eurasia. How the Kyrenia range became detached and moved away southwards to form part of Cyprus is the cause of much debate among Mediterranean geologists. The North Cyprus Kyrenia mountains are the backbone of North Cyprus, they consist mainly of marble and dolomite types of hard limestones. Their age is believed to be 100 Ma.

About two Ma ago Cyprus consisted of a chain of islands, the peaks of the Kyrenia range, which were separated from the Troodos island to the south by a shallow sea. Gradually the land continued to rise and the shallow sea became the Mesaoria plain, making Cyprus island. Thus the geological history of the island has built up three main topographical divisions, the Troodos massif, the Mesaoria plain and the Kyrenia mountain chain. A prominent topographical feature of the Kyrenia range is a series of marine terraces cut in both its slopes. They were formed by the uplift of the land mainly within the last million years. Each terrace was the result of intermittent pauses in the uplift, each pause lasting a hundred thousand years or so. Dreghorn has argued for a rise in the level of the land surface by the seashore of about 1 metre since Early Byzantine times, in contrast to the known inundation in the south of the island. The most extensive marine terrace is the one which terminates along the sea shore, exposing the limestone rock cliffs, very convenient for quarrying. It is calcarenite, a peculiar kind of limestone of granular texture, largely made up of microfossils, called foraminifera. Since it is well stratified with strong vertical joints it is easy to shape into ashlar blocks in the quarries. It was the main building stone used all over Cyprus from Neolithic times and is still in use to-day. Because this stone could be easily cut, prehistoric men dug into its terraces to make tombs for their dead.

Higher up, between the calcarenite terraces and the mountain limestone, one finds the sand and clay formations referred to above as badlands, or flysch. (Flysch is a Swiss term meaning sediment formed by the erosion of land recently emerged above sea level.) The formations have been folded under the pressure of an encroaching continent and they rose to such an extent that they sometimes present an appearance of vertical stripes; some of the softer parts erode very rapidly in rainy weather, and the formation has been described by one author as 'zebra-like'. Beds of sandstone provide good paving stones and even to-day they are much in use in the building industry. The sand and clay from these formations also yield the raw materials for the pottery industries. The run-off of rainwater is very swift on these lands and they are infertile. A good deal of work has recently gone into schemes for reforestation, so far without much success. Yet higher up the range come the Hilarion limestones. They are so highly fractured, because of the pressures they have undergone, that when it is quarried, stone comes out in irregular lumps that can only be used for crude walling, as can be seen in the Crusader castles which are located in the Kyrenia range. Adjacent to the St. Hilarion limestones there is another formation known as the Lapithos chalk. It is a prolific source of chert, which may have been used, since it is the hardest rock on the island, to cut the calcarenite in prehistoric times.

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