Neotectonic evolution of the island of Rhodes (Greece) during the Pleistocene

The Island of Rhodes is located in the tectonically active collision zone of the African and Eurasian plates in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Here, the northern margin of the African plate has been imbricated and partially subducted beneath the Eurasian plate since the Miocene. Crust underlying the Island of Rhodes constitutes uplifted segments of the Pliny and Strabo trench systems and contains a complex geological and structural record, indicating polyphase deformation. A fundamental aspect of the project is to elucidate to what extent the corrected paleo-water depth changes relate to tectonically induced vertical motion of the upper crust underlying the eastern coast of Rhodes. In this regard, it is important to know whether the crust in this region behaved as a coherent tectonic entity or formed multiple segments during Pleistocene deformation. This requires knowledge of the kinematics of neotectonic deformation, notably the assessment of magnitudes of differential displacement between potential crustal segments. This information will be related to past tectonically driven sea-level changes along the eastern coast by using the recent sea-level as a reference level. Neotectonic analyses will be conducted by a combination of remote sensing embedded in an ArcGIS platform, and field-based kinematic analysis of first-order structural discontinuities.

Funding Agency: German Science Foundation (RI 916/21-1)

Principal Investigator: Ulrich Riller

Ph.D. candidate: Malu Ferreira

Collaborators:
Prof. Dr. Gerhard Schmiedl (University of Hamburg, Germany)
Dr. Yvonne Milker (University of Hamburg, Germany)
Dr. Jürgen Titschack (MARUM Bremen & Senckenberg am Meer)