Metallic and non-metallic mineral resources of SE Anatolia, Turkey: A review

The southeastern part of the Anatolian Peninsula hosts a large number of ore deposits that retain well-preserved sedimentary and magmatic textures connected with their origins. The whole region has undergone extensive deformations and high-grade metamorphism during the Alpine Orogeny. From oldest to youngest, the known metallic and non-metallic deposits are scattered over a large area in various litho-units in the inner part of the Eastern Taurus fold belt of southeastern Turkey. Most of them are small deposits and their age of mineralization ranges from Palaeozoic to Tertiary. The metallic ore deposits were formed as a result of the evolution of the Eastern Taurus fold belt in the Alpine tectonic system. This belt is mainly constituted of ophiolite and blueschists of the upper Cretaceous-Oligocene age. The ultramafic and mafic members contain large chromite deposits of podiform type and Cyprus-type massive sulphide deposits. The most important example of the massive sulphide deposits is in Ergani, Elazig, as sea-floor pyritic copper sulphides within the ophiolite complexes. The Keban Pb-Zn deposit is another metallic occurrence as vein and cavity fillings in breccias, and stockworks in the pneumatolytic-hydrothermal stage of the intermediate and acidic magmas indicating a backarc environment. Replacement of the country rocks by high-temperature hydrothermal solution has also resulted in some non-metallic ore bodies emplaced especially within limestones, the main examples of which are the phosphate and asphaltite occurrences at Mazidag and Sirnak respectively, ranging in the stratigraphical scale from Cambrian to Quaternary. These formations are metamorphosed to gneiss, schist, phylitte, and marble in the greenschist or amphibolite facies in many places. The main economic occurrences of metamorphic massifs are apatite-rich iron deposits and several epithermal/ mesothermal veins along the main faults.