EVIDENCE AGAINST THE CORE COVER INTERPRETATION OF THE SOUTHERN SECTOROF THE MENDERES MASSIF, WEST TURKEY

The Menderes Massif, in western Anatolia, has been described as a lith ological succession comprising a basal 'Precambrian gneissic core of s edimentary origin' overlain in sequence by 'Palaeozoic schist' and 'Me sozoic-Cenozoic marble' forming the envelope. The boundary between cor e and schist envelope was interpreted as a major unconformity, the 'Su pra-Pan-African unconformity'. By contrast, our field observations and geochemical data show that around the southern side of Besparmak Moun tain, north of Selimiye (Milas), the protoliths of highly deformed, my lonitized augen gneisses are granitoid rocks intrusive into the adjace nt Palaeozoic metasedimentary schists. The field relationships indicat e the age of intrusion to be younger than late Permian and there is no evidence for the existence of either an exposed Precambrian basement or the 'Supra-Pan-African unconformity' in this sector of the Menderes Massif.