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Turkish Journal of Earth Sciences

Abstract

The İznik city (ancient Nicaea), located east of Lake İznik (known as -“Bithynia” in ancient times), has been an important political and cultural centre of Asia Minor since the Hellenistic period. Marbles produced in the quarries in the vicinity (Ömerli and İnikli villages, Deliktaş-Sarıtaş hills) were used both in the construction of the walls and in many ancient works in the city. Approximately eighteen ancient marble quarries producing grey and white marbles were investigated in the region. Petrography, EPR, XRD, C-O-Sr isotope and whole rock geochemistry analyses were performed for characterization of the samples collected from the quarries for the provenance studies. According to the new geochemistry and C-O-Sr isotope data, the limestones forming the marbles were deposited in open sea-ocean environments. U-Pb calcite dating determined that the white marbles were 93.06 ± 8.55 Ma, while the grey marbles were 94.84 ± 1.41 Ma and 88.03 ± 2.13 Ma (Upper Cretaceous: Cenomanian-Coniacian). These ages probably correspond to the crystallization/metamorphism ages of the marbles. The new data set obtained with this study will contribute to the understanding of the geological evolution of the region, and will help researchers to better understand the source region of some white and grey marbles used in ancient buildings.

Author ORCID Identifier

NAMIK AYSAL: 0000-0001-9669-7305

ÖZGE KARSLIOĞLU: 0000-0003-3203-6756

EMRE ERDEM: 0000-0002-8395-0364

MARCEL GUILLONG: 0000-0002-6920-3362

SİNAN ÖNGEN: 0000-0003-2437-2506

İBRAHİM UYSAL: 0000-0002-8263-8774

ERSİN KAYGISIZ: 0000-0002-1945-2870

İPEK YILDIRIM: 0000-0002-5559-8447

DOI

10.55730/1300-0985.1981

Keywords

Ancient marble, bigio antico, Nicaea, U-Pb calcite dating

First Page

650

Last Page

668

Publisher

The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Türkiye (TÜBİTAK)

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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