These somewhat interesting ‘mushroom’, like landforms are part of the
volcanic landscape of Cappadocia, the ‘Land of Beautiful Horses’.
Cappadocia lies in south eastern central Turkey, some 275 km south-east
of Ankara.
This article should serve as an introduction to what is an exceedingly complex volcanic province and only ‘scratches the surface’ of what is in the locale.
The volcanism in the area and in southern Turkey in general, is associated with the Alpine front orogenic belt with the Afro-Arabian plate moving northwards and being subducted below, the Anatolian sub-plate of the main Euro-Asian plate; the Taurus mountains being the Alpine equivalent. The volcanism, which here began in the Miocene period about 18m years ago and as with most subduction zones, is predominantly of the calc-alkaline type, with arcuate volcanic features. In Cappadocia, the main volcanoes (out of 19 major and many other satellite monogenetic and maar vents) are Erciyes Dag (3916m), Hasan Dag (3253), Melendiz (2963m), Kegiboydoran and Develi; the former 2, being most recent, have had the most obvious effects on the landscape of the area.
This article should serve as an introduction to what is an exceedingly complex volcanic province and only ‘scratches the surface’ of what is in the locale.
The volcanism in the area and in southern Turkey in general, is associated with the Alpine front orogenic belt with the Afro-Arabian plate moving northwards and being subducted below, the Anatolian sub-plate of the main Euro-Asian plate; the Taurus mountains being the Alpine equivalent. The volcanism, which here began in the Miocene period about 18m years ago and as with most subduction zones, is predominantly of the calc-alkaline type, with arcuate volcanic features. In Cappadocia, the main volcanoes (out of 19 major and many other satellite monogenetic and maar vents) are Erciyes Dag (3916m), Hasan Dag (3253), Melendiz (2963m), Kegiboydoran and Develi; the former 2, being most recent, have had the most obvious effects on the landscape of the area.
