Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
QUATERNARY INTERNATIONAL, cilt.186, ss.132-163, 2008 (SCI-Expanded)
Incision by the River Euphrates has created a dramatic erosional landscape in the northern Arabian Platform in SE Turkey. We obtain accurate heights of its terrace deposits in the Birecik area using differential GPS, and summarise evidence regarding heights of Late Miocene basalt flows and low-altitude wetland sediments. We thus estimate similar to 600 m of uplift since the early Late Miocene (similar to 9 Ma), represented by similar to 270m of fluvial incision, the difference reflecting downstream channel-lengthening as the coastline has retreated to the Persian Gulf, similar to 1400km away. The oldest recognised sediments, inset below this level, form a thick aggradation between similar to 100 and similar to 130 m above the present level of the Euphrates. We estimate that this accumulated during similar to 5-3 Ma when uplift rates were low, such that aggradation was necessary to maintain a downstream channel gradient in response to the coastal retreat. Palaeolithic artefacts have been reported locally in Euphrates deposits up to similar to 80m above present river level, which we tentatively date to similar to 1.8 Ma. The Euphrates subsequently incised to within similar to 10 m of its present level before aggrading similar to 45 m higher in the late Early Pleistocene. The final similar to 55 m of incision reflects the increase in uplift rates observed worldwide in the early Middle Pleistocene, following the Mid-Pleistocene Revolution. (C) 2007 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved.