Late Pleistocene and Holocene uplift history of Cyprus: implications for active tectonics along the southern margin of the Anatolian microplate

Abstract The nature of the southern margin of the Anatolian microplate during the Neogene is complex, controversial and fundamental in understanding active plate-margin tectonics and natural hazards in the Eastern Mediterranean region. Our investigation provides new insights into the Late Pleistocene uplift history of Cyprus and the Troodos Ophiolite. We provide isotopic (14C) and radiogenic (luminescence) dates of outcropping marine sediments in eastern Cyprus that identify periods of deposition during marine isotope stages (MIS) 3, 4, 5 and 6. Past sea-levels indicated by these deposits are c. 95±25 m higher in elevation than estimates of worldwide eustatic sea-level. An uplift rate of c. 1.8 mm/year and possibly as much as c. 4.1 mm/year in the past c. 26–40 ka is indicated. Holocene marine deposits also occur at elevations higher than those expected for past SL and suggest uplift rates of c. 1.2–2.1 mm/year. MIS-3 marine deposits that crop out in southern and western Cyprus indicate uniform island-wide uplift. We propose a model of tectonic wedging at a plate-bounding restraining bend as a mechanism for Late Pleistocene to Holocene uplift of Cyprus; uplift is accommodated by deformation and seismicity along the margins of the Troodos Ophiolite and re-activation of its low-angle, basal shear zone. Supplementary material: An expanded description of the procedures used in determining OSL ages for samples given in Table 2 is available at www.geolsoc.org.uk/SUP18533.

The Eastern Mediterranean region has had a complex tectonic history since the Early Mesozoic breakup of Gondwana. Between the major plates of Africa and Eurasia, there is a .1500 km-wide intervening collage of differing tectonic terranes that is the product of shearing, rifting, subduction, obduction and contraction over the past 200 Ma. The dynamics of plate interactions and diastrophism, both past and present, are recorded in the assembly of this collage.
The island of Cyprus is in the middle of Neogene tectonic interaction between the Anatolian microplate on the southern margin of the Eurasian plate and fragmented blocks (Sinai block, Nubian microplate) of the African plate (Fig. 1). Structures off the southern coast of Cyprus are widely considered as accommodating both convergence and left-lateral strike-slip motion between these plates (McKenzie, 1970;Dewey et al. 1973;Robertson et al. 1995;Garfunkel 1998;Pinar & Kalafat 1999;Makris et al. 2000;Vidal et al. 2000;Harrison et al. , 2008Schattner, 2010). However, most individual aspects of the tectonic setting are controversial, as there exist many varying hypotheses and interpretations. For example, there are two competing hypotheses on the nature of major structures off the south coast of Cyprus in the respective roles of subduction v. transform faulting. These are: (1) that a northerly dipping subduction zone, which has consumed oceanic crust since the Late Cretaceous, exists south of Cyprus (Woodside 1977;Poole & Robertson 1991;Robertson et al. 1995;Robertson 2000;Schattner 2010) and (2) that multiple leftlateral transform systems intersect south of Cyprus that help accommodate regional escape tectonics (Neev 1977;Kemplar & Garfunkel 1994;Makris et al. 2000;Harrison & Panayides 2004;Harrison et al. , 2008.
It is our opinion that, in the absence of a volcanic arc that can be linked to a subsiding oceanic slab beneath Cyprus, any post-Miocene subduction-zone model for Cyprus is disfavoured. Our alternative model is that today's active tectonic setting is one of strike-slip (transform) tectonics that has dominated the region since the Oligocene opening of the Gulf-of-Suez rift and subsequent Early to Middle Miocene Red Sea spreading and development of the Dead Sea transform (Mahmoud et al. Fig. 1. Tectonic map of major crustal features between the Eurasian and African plates in the Eastern Mediterranean region, modified and adapted after Harrison et al. ( , 2008 and many others sources, including Vidal et al. (2000), ten Veen et al. (2004), Neev (1977), Papazachos & Papaioannou (1999), Robertson (2000), Aal et al. (2001), Kemplar & Garfunkel (1994) Harrison et al. ( , 2008. Approximate boundary between oceanic and continental crust south of Cyprus from Aal et al. (2001) is indicated by O and C; large arrows represent relative plate motions after Jackson and McKenzie (1988) and McClusky et al. (2000). The fault system between Cyprus and ES is the Cypriot transform, which marks the southern Anatolian microplate boundary. Bold dashed red lines are major crustal boundaries; thin red lines are regional faults; black half arrows show relative horizontal motion along faults. Thin shaded full arrows portray relative motion between the Anatolian microplate and African plate after Wdowinski et al. (2006Wdowinski et al. ( ). 2005). This coincided with the northward translation of the Arabian plate and its impingement into the Eurasian plate as an indenter, which drives the western escape of the Anatolian microplate (Şengör et al. 1985;Burke & Şengör 1986), similar to a lemon seed being squeezed between two fingers. Burke and Şengör (1986) used the term 'scholle' for crustal fragments that are expelled sideways between strike-slip faults with opposite directions of motion towards areas of overthrusting in continentcontinent collisions and subduction in continentoceanic settings. In this aspect, Anatolia is a scholle that is moving westward between the right-lateral North Anatolia fault zone and several left-lateral fault zones on its southern margin, including the East Anatolia fault zone and the Cyprus transform of Harrison et al. ( , 2008, which is otherwise known as the Cyprus arc. Cyprus is moving with Anatolia (Fig. 1), and similar to the seed analogy, the maximum stress (d 1 ) on Cyprus is horizontal and oriented orthogonal to the island's western motion, illustrated by the stress-strain ellipse in Figure 1. Our working hypothesis is that transform structures accommodate the westward escape of Anatolia and Cyprus. Crustal uplift occurs at restraining bends and subsidence at releasing bends (see Bridwell 1975;Mann 2007;Swanson 2005) formed by fault curvature and by strain transfer between parallel strike-slip structures along the plate boundary south of Cyprus (Harrison et al. , 2008. One aspect of active tectonics that can be studied and evaluated to better understand lithospheric activity in the Eastern Mediterranean region is crustal uplift. Sediments on Cyprus provide relatively easy access to information on the uplift history of this island. Following is a description of the stratigraphy found on the Larnaca Lowlands shelf and eastern Mesaoria Basin and information contained within the section that is relative to past eustatic sea-level (SL). We then compare past SL determined for Cyprus with worldwide estimates of previous SL in order to interpret the uplift history of the southeastern portion of the island from the last interglacial period to the Present. All of our references to past SL are based on the mean values of Siddall et al. (2003) for the Red Sea and Shackleton et al. (2000) for the Iberian margin.

Late Pleistocene and Holocene Marine stratigraphy of the Larnaca Lowlands shelf and eastern Mesaoria Basin
The Larnaca Lowlands shelf is a gently seawarddipping platform that extends from the bedrock uplands of the Troodos Mountains, c. 4-6 km inland from the coast, to c. 4-6 km offshore, where there is a precipitous drop in the bathymetry into the Cyprus Basin (Figs 2 & 3). The slope of the shelf is about 7.0 -7.5 m/km or ,0.58. The emerged portion of the shelf is called the Larnaca Lowlands. Substrata that form the floor of the shelf are composed of marl and sandy marl of the Nicosia Formation (latest Miocene to Early Pleistocene), gypsum and marl of the Kalavasos Formation (Messinian), and chalk of the Pakhna Formation (Miocene). The floor of the shelf is an erosional surface that was cut into substrata at some unknown time in the Early to Middle Pleistocene. Substrata crop out locally, but much of the Larnaca Lowlands is covered by the Late Pleistocene and Holocene alluvial fan and marine deposits, the latter of which crop out in a 1 -3 km-wide belt from Cape Kiti northward through the city of Larnaca (Fig. 4). Typically, Late Pleistocene marine deposits form ridges and hills that are as much as 30 m in elevation and lie unconformably upon substrata, and Holocene marine deposits crop out from 0 to 3 m above SL. A palaeoestuary (shown on Figs 3 & 4) that is cut into substrata exists along a system of faults of Late Pleistocene and Holocene age (Larnaca fault zone of Harrison & Tsiolakis 2007). The palaeo-estuary is now occupied by salt lakes, whose surfaces are below SL and are underlain by Holocene marine deposits. Alluvial fan deposits overlie and fill broad channels cut into the Late Pleistocene marine deposits.

Previous work in the Larnaca Lowlands and eastern Mesaoria Basin
In a study of the Larnaca Lowlands by Bagnall (1960), the entire Quaternary marine section was grouped together and called the 'Shelly Sandstones' of Pleistocene age. Bagnall (1960) recognized that a sandy conglomerate typically occurred at the base of the section and that these deposits had accumulated in a shallow-water marine environment 'at no great distance from a shore line and conditions were probably very similar to those observed on the beaches of Cyprus at the present time'. Bagnall (1960) considered the alluvial fan deposits in the lowlands as the oldest Pleistocene unit. Gifford (1978) developed a geochronology for the Holocene marine deposits along the coast and within the salt lakes, as part of a palaeogeographic study of archaeological sites in the Larnaca Lowlands; his data are included in Table 1. Morhange et al. (2000) further expanded the Holocene geochronology for marine deposits around the archaeological site of Kition, a Late Bronze Age city near the heart of present-day Larnaca, and its ancient port of Bamboula; their data also are included in Table 1. Poole et al. (1990) and Poole and Robertson (1991) viewed the Pleistocene marine section as consisting of multiple terrace levels that were traceable around the southern two-thirds of the island. In Larnaca, they measured a section at c. 8-11 m above SL comprising a basal conglomerate overlain by calcarenite overlain by conglomerate beds; and at Dhekelia Bay (see Fig. 2 for location), they measured a section from c. 0 to 3 m above SL of two calcarenite beds separated by a conglomerate bed. U-series age data by Poole et al. (1990) and Poole and Robertson (1991) for these beds are discussed in the following section on the Vikla beds.
The eastern Mesaoria Basin lies c. 15 km to the north of the Larnaca Lowlands (Fig. 2). There has been little prior geologic work in the eastern Mesaoria, except for Devillers et al. (2002), who describe shallow Holocene marine deposits laid down in an inland bay connected to the Mediterranean Sea by a narrow channel. Their reported ages for these deposits are given below.

Stratigraphic column
The Quaternary marine section in the Larnaca Lowlands is divisible into stratigraphic column based on facies and age (Fig. 5). Basal sand and conglomerate beds form the oldest Pleistocene marine unit, herein called the Vikla beds (informal). The Vikla beds are overlain by deposits of two contemporaneous facies: a finer-grained sediment herein called the Kiti Tower sand (informal) and a coarser-grained sediment herein called the Kashanes gravel (informal). Holocene marine sand and gravel deposits occur along the present coast at elevations of +2-3 m and lower. Holocene lagoon and shallowwater marine deposits occur beneath the salt lakes at elevations of SL and lower.

Vikla beds -basal Late Pleistocene section: MIS-5 -7
The Vikla beds is our proposed name for basal Late Pleistocene marine sediments that crop out at scattered locations on the Larnaca Lowlands shelf. The name comes from Vikla Point -a prominent ledge on the south side of Larnaca. This unit is an assemblage of time-transgressive sediments that have accumulated on the shelf over the course of tens of thousands of years. These deposits rest with angular unconformity on the Nicosia Formation at  Dhekelia Bay and the Larnaca area and on the Pakhna Formation at Cape Kiti. They comprise intercalated, thin, lithic sand and conglomerate beds. Gifford (1978) showed that marine sand of the Vikla beds at +3 m elevation in Larnaca has a sorting profile identical to that found in the swath zone of modern Mediterranean beaches. Clasts consist of mafic -ultramafic rocks (Troodos Ophiolite), chalk and chert fragments that are typically well rounded to disc-shaped. Beds vary from very fossiliferous at Dhekelia Bay to sparsely fossiliferous at Larnaca and at Cape Kiti. At Dhekelia Bay, Vikla beds are overlain by burrowed sand of the Kiti Tower sand, which is overlain by gravel and sand beds of the Kashanes gravel (both are discussed below). In the Cape Kiti area, strongly calichified, sparsely to nonfossiliferous Vikla beds lie on Miocene Pakhna Formation and are overlain by Kiti Tower sand.
Also assigned to Vikla beds are marine sand and gravel beds that occur at 140-160 m in elevation at several locations surrounding the Larnaca Lowlands. These deposits are interbedded, well-sorted,  All samples with control numbers beginning in WW were processed at the 14 C laboratory of the US Geological Survey in Reston, Virginia and 14 C ages were determined at the Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California. All other samples and corresponding ages in this table originated in other publications and are listed here for comparison. Radiocarbon ages reported in years before Present (year bp) were calculated using the Libby half-life of 5568 years. Values reported for d 13 C are given in parts per million (‰) relative to the Pee Dee Belemnite standard. Those reported with decimal places were measured for the material itself; all others are estimates. The d 13 C values marked 'not reported' indicate that this information was not included in the original publication. Calibrated ages are given as two-sigma (2s) ranges and the mean values of those ranges in years BP using the IntCal09 and Marine09 calibration curves (Reimer et al. 2009) for terrestrial and marine samples, respectively, in conjunction with the Calib 6.0 radiocarbon calibration program (Stuiver & Reimer 1993). Bracketed values indicate that the calibrated range impinges upon the end of the calibration data set. For the three terrestrial snail samples, 3000 years was subtracted from the reservoir age before calibration to adjust for the maximum error found in land snails (see Harrison et al. (2008) for background on dating of the same snail species from Cyprus & Goodfriend (1987) for calibration throughout Middle East). Ages of the six samples whose initial radiocarbon values approach the limitations of the technique at c. 45 ka could represent minimum values. Samples marked with an asterisk showed only trace amounts of aragonite recrystallization to calcite (,1%) when analysed by XRD and are 99 -100% aragonite; unmarked samples analysed showed 95 -98% aragonite and 2-5% calcite.
strongly indurated sand and pebbly gravel beds that are similar to Holocene coastal sediments along the present shoreline; thickness is as much as 10 m.

Kiti Tower sand and Kashanes gravel: MIS-3 and 4 marine deposits
Overlying the Vikla beds are deposits of two contemporaneous marine facies. These are a sanddominated facies that we call the Kiti Tower sand and a coarser facies of intercalated gravel and minor sand that we call the Kashanes gravel. These sediments crop out in a nearly continuous 2-3 km-wide belt along the coast of the Larnaca Lowlands (Fig. 4).
Kiti Tower sand. Kiti Tower sand is our name for exposures around the Medieval Kiti Tower, which is located c. 2 km north of Cape Kiti. Typically, this formation comprises weakly to moderately indurated, coarse-to medium-grained lithic sand. Characteristics of this unit vary locally from massive to thin bedding and from cross-bedded foreset beds to planar, strongly burrowed beds. Lithic grains comprise chalk, chert and maficultramafic material. Quartz grains are very sparse and may be of aeolian origin blown in from Africa. Reworked foraminifera from older Cenozoic units are common to abundant. Indigenous macrofossils are relatively sparse, but locally whole clams in death position occur in massive sand beds, and thin beds of broken shell hash are common in higher-energy cross-bedded sediments.
Kiti Tower sand crops out at elevations of SL to as much as +30 m north of Cape Kiti and in Larnaca, but is absent between these areas (Fig. 3). Excavations within Larnaca reveal unconformities within the Kiti Tower sand that represent regressive -transgressive cycles (Fig. 6). Kiti Tower sand also crops out in beach-front cliffs at Dhekelia Bay, where it lies beneath gravels of the Kashanes gravel (described below). Kiti Tower sand also occurs extensively in the eastern Mesaoria Basin (Fig. 2) to the NE of the Larnaca Lowlands shelf.
Our mean age determinations for the Kiti Tower sand range from c. 65 ka to c. 25 ka bp (see Tables 1  & 2 and Fig. 7). This range is from combined 14 C (seven samples) and OSL (10 samples) data, which show overall agreement for these units. OSL ages do show a slightly older range for the Kiti Tower sand, beyond the 50 -54 ka upper age limit of the radiocarbon technique (Trumbore 2000). Our 14 C ages for the Kiti Tower sand are from various sea shells that include in situ whole  All samples were processed and analysed at the USGS laboratory in Denver, CO except for 6/2/10 -2, which was analysed by G. Brook at University of Georgia facilities. Field moisture, with numbers in parentheses indicating the complete sample saturation percentage. Ages calculated using c. 90% of saturation values if below the water table. Analyses obtained using laboratory gamma spectrometry (highresolution Ge detector). Cosmic doses and attenuation with depth were calculated using the methods of Prescott & Hutton (1994   Plot of 14 C and OSL-IRSL geochronology data for the Larnaca Lowlands shelf (from this report, and Gifford (1978), Morhange et al. (2000)), eastern Mesaoria Basin (from this report), and sites along the western coast of Cyprus reported by Vita-Finzi (1990). Black-filled symbols are OSL/IRSL ages. All others are calibrated 14 C ages; color-filled 14 C symbols for Kashanes gravel and Kiti Tower sand are samples that analysed 99-100% aragonite and unfilled 14 C symbols analysed 95-98% aragonite. See Tables 1 and 2 for analytical data. 'S' by alluvial-fan deposit age indicates that sample was a terrestrial snail (see text for discussion). Orange-filled box in alluvial-fan ages is a 14 C age from Gifford (1998).
Kashanes gravel. Kashanes gravel is our name for marine gravel and sand facies that are intercalated with the Kiti Tower sand. The name is taken from Kashanes Point on the coast near the east side of the Larnaca International Airport, where indurated, fossiliferous gravel and sand beds crop out from SL to c. 2 m above SL and are unconformably overlain by unconsolidated Holocene sand. The outcrop pattern of this unit is very similar to that of the Kiti Tower sand from Dhekelia Bay to Cape Kiti.
Kashanes gravel also crops out on the southern coast c. 5 km west of Cape Kiti. Clasts in Kashanes gravel comprise cobbles, granules and sand of chert, chalk and maficultramafic composition. Cobbles are typically rounded to well rounded and matrix supported. Some clasts are disc shaped. Beds vary from thin (few centimetres) to massive (.1-2 m) and are typically poorly to moderately sorted. The unit varies from very fossiliferous to sparsely fossiliferous. Gaudry (1862) identified 88 species of mollusks, four species of Serpula, three varieties of echinoderms, and the coral Cladocora caespitosa from beds of Kashanes gravel in the Larnaca area.
We produced 14 C ages on 27 marine shells of varied species (not all identified to genus) and spatial distribution from the Kashanes gravel (Table 1). XRD analyses show minor amounts (,5%) of aragonite recrystallization to calcite for 23 of these samples; three samples show trace amounts (,1) of recrystallization, and a sample of coral in growth position shows no recrystallization. Mean values of individual shells range from c. 26-46 ka (Fig. 7). There is no distinguishable age difference between samples with minor recrystallization and those with trace amounts or no recrystallization; this is similar to the results of Vita-Finzi (1990). We obtained one OSL age of 45.9 + 5.1 ka from a thin sand bed within the Kashanes gravel; this age agrees well with a 14 C age of 42 154 + 552 cal-year-bp for a shell collected directly over the OSL-dated sample (Fig. 6), again demonstrating the close correlations in ages acquired by these two techniques. The majority of the Kashanes population clusters around 40 + 6 ka; the youngest two ages for this unit are c. 26 -27 ka, which are similar to the youngest ages obtained for the Kiti Tower sand. The similarity in ages between the Kashanes and Kiti Tower units agrees well with observed field relations between these two interbedded facies (Fig. 6).

Other MIS-3 and 4 marine deposits on Cyprus
Our 14 C ages on marine shells from Kashanes and Kiti Tower units in the Larnaca Lowlands and eastern Mesaoria Basin overlap 14 C ages on marine shells reported by Vita-Finzi (1990) from near-shore marine deposits in western Cyprus (see Fig. 2 for locations of his samples; his analyses are included in Table 1 and are plotted on Fig. 7). Vita-Finzi's (1990) samples came from elevations of c. 4-30 m above SL, similar to ours.
Additional data indicating that MIS-3-and 4 marine deposits exist at or above present SL on Cyprus are provided by OSL age constraints on a 6 m-thick bed of calcarenite at Ayia Napa (see Fig. 2), where two samples yielded age ranges of 46.8 + 2.6 to 60.9 + 4.4 and 53.0 + 2.7 to 57.9 + 5.2 ka (Geological Survey Department, GSD, Cyprus, 2010). Undated, poorly consolidated marine sand and gravel deposit that crops out in the Ormideia Valley (see Fig. 2) between Ayia Napa and Larnaca appears to be identical to our Kiti Tower and Kashanes units. Also, the undated Pissouri sandstone unit (see Fig. 2) of Stow et al. (1995) is considered as possibly correlative with our Kiti Tower sand. The Pissouri sandstone unit is strongly bioturbated and intercalated with widespread gravels and well-developed palaeosols, and locally the unit displays Gilbert-type forest beds (Stow et al. 1995). All of these characteristics are similar to the Kiti Tower sand and both units occupy the same stratigraphic interval at the top of the marine section, directly below alluvial-fan deposits. The Pissouri sandstone unit is relatively thick at c. 80 m (Stow et al. 1995) and occurs at higher elevations than the Kiti Tower sand. We suggest the possibility that the Pissouri Sandstone and our Kiti Tower sand could be equivalent units.

MIS-2 unconformity
The unconformity that bounds the top of the Kiti Tower -Kashanes sequence marks a significant erosional regressive cycle that affected the landscape of the Larnaca Lowlands shelf and eastern Mesaoria Basin. During the period marked by this unconformity, Kiti Tower-Kashanes sediments were raised above SL and there is no indication that they were ever again below SL; we offer this as an explanation as to why shells with minor (,5%) recrystallization yield similar ages to shells with only trace (,1%) to no recrystallization -after deposition, they were never again in a saturated environment. Fluvial valleys were incised through the Late Pleistocene section and into the underlying substratum during the regressive cycle. Subsurface drill data on file at the GSD in Nicosia indicate that the floor of the palaeo-valley beneath the Larnaca Salt Lakes is cut as much as 12 m below present SL; drill data by Gifford (1978) show a depth of incision of c. 16 m for this palaeo-valley. Drill data (Devillers et al. 2002) indicate a palaeo-valley floor of c. 20 m below SL in the eastern Mesaoria Basin. Structural contours drawn on the top of substrata in the Larnaca Lowlands shelf (see Fig. 3) reveal two other palaeo-valleys that have been subsequently filled and buried by alluvial fan deposits.

Holocene estuarine deposits beneath the Larnaca Salt Lakes and in the eastern Mesaoria Basin
Holocene estuarine deposits are known to exist beneath the Larnaca Salt Lakes from drill data and 14 C dates reported by Gifford (1978), and an unpublished engineering report on the Larnaca International Airport on file at GSD in Nicosia (Gajarda & Makris 1998). These reports describe a marine section that extends from SL to c. 16 m below SL and rests upon silt and marl beds of the Nicosia Formation. These marine deposits consist of olive-grey to dark-grey sandy to silty mud deposits that contain varying amounts of shells and organic-marine -plant material. Late Holocene colluvium deposits containing Late Bronze Age and Roman Era sherds and alluvial fill of mud and wellrounded, polished sand and gravel overlie the estuarine deposits (Gifford 1978).
Our mapping of the Larnaca Lowlands discovered in situ coral Cladocora caespitosa at c. 0.5 m above SL on the eastern side of the Main Larnaca Salt Lake. The coral grew attached to gravel of the Kashanes gravel and yielded a 14 C age of 5511 + 65 cal-year-bp. This age agrees well with 14 C ages obtained by Gifford (1978) and GSD, Cyprus on organic material at elevations of c. 5.5 to 10.8 m below SL in the estuarine fill of 7217 + 267, 6921 + 391, 6086 + 200, and 4617 + 268 calyear-bp (Table 1 and Fig. 7) . It also agrees well with archaeology data that indicates the Late Bronze age site of Hala Sultan Tekke on the Main Larnaca Salt Lake was built on a marine shore at approximately today's SL (Å ström et al. 1983). The port of Hala Sultan Tekke was abandoned at c. 2500 year bp when the mouth of the estuary was cut off from the sea owing to uplift (Gifford 1978). This uplift ended marine deposition in the estuary; historical data indicate that the Main Larnaca Salt Lake was producing salt at c. 2250 year bp and no longer connected to the Mediterranean Sea. Devillers et al. (2002) report c. 20 m of fossiliferous Holocene silt and sand, and marine organic material recovered from a drill hole in the eastern Mesaoria Basin (Fig. 2). They interpreted these sediments as having been deposited in a vast estuarine bay and report 14 C ages (cal-year-bp) on sea shells of 3805 + 165 at c. 2.2 m below SL, 4180 + 190 at c. 6.8 m below SL, 7185 + 145 at c. 7.7 m below SL, 7400 + 150 at c. 19.1 m below SL and 8750 + 250 at c. 19.8 m below SL. Devillers et al. (2002) postulate that the ancient seaport of Enkomi was located on the shores of this palaeo-estuary. Today, stone blocks that are thought to be ship moorings at Enkomi are partially excavated at c. 4 m above SL, but until further archaeological work is completed, the suggested past SL is considered tentative.

Holocene marine deposits along the Larnaca coast
Unconsolidated Holocene marine sediment occurs along the present shore of the Larnaca Lowlands (Fig. 4). These deposits vary from well to moderately well sorted littoral sand and gravel to silty sand to very poorly sorted, gravelly, muddy sand. In addition to marine fauna, Hellenistic and Roman Era sherds occur within some of these deposits (Gifford 1978;Morhange et al. 2000). Drill core obtained for the archaeology studies of Gifford (1978) and Morhange et al. (2000) and building excavations in the city of Larnaca encountered beds of organic-rich sediments, consisting mostly of Posidonia oceanic fibres, interbedded with the clastic sediments.
Several 14 C ages have been obtained previously on the organic layers at Larnaca by Gifford (1978) and Morhange et al. (2000); these range from c. 1173 to c. 4446 cal-year-bp (Table 1 and Fig. 7). Two 14 C dates obtained on organic material for this report are 1726 + 99 and 1780 + 86 cal-year-bp (Table 1, Fig. 7). Our samples came from about present SL and are overlain by c. 1 m of marine sand and subsequently by c. 1 m of anthropogenic fill. We also obtained a 14 C age of 3731 + 99 calyear-bp on bivalve shells collected from Holocene marine sand at 0.5 m above SL that overlies the Kashanes gravel at its type locality and an OSL age of 3440 + 620 bp from sandy marine clay at c. 1 m near Cape Kiti.
Also, we sampled Holocene marine deposits exposed from SL to c. 2 m above SL at the former confluence of the salt lakes estuary and the Mediterranean Sea, from which we obtained a 14 C age of 3426 + 87 cal-year-bp on a bivalve shell, OSL ages of 3410 + 470 and 2380 + 320 year bp, and an Infrared Stimulated Luminescence (IRSL) age of 2940 + 190 year bp (Tables 1 & 2). These latter ages are consistent with an 14 C age of 6023 + 264 cal-year-bp determined by Gifford (1978) from drill-core material recovered from 6.5 m below SL at the same locality (sample K16 in Table 1) in that they show a younging-upward sequence of marine deposits.

Late Pleistocene and Holocene alluvial fan deposits
Alluvial fan deposits cover much of the Larnaca Lowlands (Fig. 4). These deposits range from proximal interbedded gravel and coarse-grained-sand facies to distal fine-to-medium-sand and silt facies. They occur at elevations of as much as 120 m above SL to SL along the coast. Thicknesses vary from a few metres to as much as 30 -40 m but are mostly less than 20 m. In the northern half of the Larnaca Lowlands, relatively extensive areas are barren of fan deposits and older substrata are at the surface. The alluvial fan deposits grade into thin terrace deposits in strath valleys incised into the western bedrock hills, which are the primary source for the detrital material. Palaeo-flow directions from imbricated clasts are consistently towards the SE and south, similar to present-day stream flow. Included in the alluvial fan deposits shown on the geologic map (Fig. 4) are proximal colluvial-wedge deposits that have been shed off from the adjacent fault-uplifted hills to the west of the lowlands.
Fourteen age determinations for the alluvial fan deposits range from c. 42 to ,1 ka (Tables 1 & 2, Fig. 7). However, all but two of these ages are ≤25 ka. All but one of the ages were derived from 14 C and OSL techniques for this report; the additional age comes from archaeological data of Gifford (1978), who found sherds from c. 2 600 year bp incorporated in alluvial fan sediment near the coast at Larnaca. Gifford (1978) also recognized a 20 cm-thick, red-brown palaeosol in the alluvial fan sequence near Hala Sultan Tekke (HST on Fig. 4), for which he obtained a 14 C date of 19 230 + 804 cal-year-bp. Our OSL ages on samples from a c. 2 m-thick section of alluvial-fan deposits at Cape Kiti show a downward sequence of 13.8 + 1.35, 16.7 + 0.85, 20.6 + 2.43 and 30.3 + 13.7 ka. A palaeosol that is similar in thickness and colour to the one dated by Gifford (1978) occurs in the interval between the last two ages in the Cape Kiti sequence. The palaeosols at both Larnaca and Cape Kiti are at ,5 m elevation and near the coast. About 3 km inland and at c. 17 -18 m above SL, an OSL age of 14.6 + 1.3 ka and an IRSL age of 19.2 + 1.6 ka were obtained from a sample of sandy mud in alluvial fan deposits directly above a palaeosol that is similar in thickness and colour to the other palaeosols. Occurrences of similar, but undated, palaeosols exist to as much as 120 m above SL in the uplands to the west of the Larnaca Lowlands. An area of youthful, non-dissected fan morphology occurs in the southern third of the Larnaca Lowlands below where the Tremithos River exits the western bedrock hills (Fig. 4).

Discussion: Neogene uplift and mechanisms of crustal uplift
The fact that Cyprus is the only island in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea attests to unique crustal processes there that are different from those of surrounding areas. This uniqueness is further illustrated by gravity studies (Harrison 1955;Gass & Masson-Smith 1963;Ergün et al. 2005) that show a pronounced positive anomaly characterizing Cyprus: an anomaly great enough to isostatically require c. 1 cm/year of subsidence to maintain equilibrium (Harrison 1955). The source of the anomaly is the massif of the Troodos Ophiolite. Evidence in the sedimentary cover overlying the Troodos indicates that at least portions of the island have been elevated relative to elsewhere in the Eastern Mediterranean as far back at the Early Miocene (Robertson 1977;Eaton 1987). Sedimentary evidence also indicates that, since the Middle Pliocene, much of the island has been above SL and has been episodically rising (McCallum 1989;McCallum & Robertson 1990;Harrison et al. 2008). Understanding the nature and causes of this uplift is fundamental in understanding neotectonism along the southern boundary of the Anatolian microplate and the crustal evolution of the Eastern Mediterranean. This understanding takes on societal importance when it looks at the island's recent uplift history, as such inspection can provide indications for potential hazards related to seismicity, tsunamis and coastal change, which are natural phenomena associated with crustal uplift.

Uplift of MIS-3 and 4 deposits
Our data indicate that sediments of the Kashanes gravel and Kiti Tower sand, which today are at elevations as high as 30 m above SL, were deposited during MIS-3 and 4, a period covering much of the Earth's last glacial interval. Eustatic SL during this period was well below that of the present and for MIS-3, SL ranged from 40 to 90 m below that of today (Waelbroeck et al. 2002;Siddall et al. 2003Siddall et al. , 2008Lambeck & Purcell 2005;Shackleton et al. 2000). Based on those values, assuming that dated sediments were deposited near SL, and without taking into account any depth of water during deposition, outcrops of MIS-3 sediments at c. 30 m on the Larnaca Lowlands shelf are c. 70-120 m above the elevation expected for SL at that time (Fig. 8).
Dividing the data into age populations of c. 25 -26 and c. 40 ka, which obtain maximum observed elevations of c. 12 and c. 30 m, respectively, our calculated uplift rate for the younger population is c. 2.1-4.1 mm/year and for the older population is c. 1.8-3.0 mm/year. These rates are much greater than previous uplift estimates of c. .05 mm/year since the Late Pleistocene (Poole et al. 1990;Poole & Robertson 1991), but are similar to values determined by Vita-Finzi (1990) for western Cyprus. Our calculated rates would be greater if a depth of water column was added to the calculations.
The occurrence of MIS-3 and 4 deposits above present SL at Larnaca, Famagusta, Ayia Napa (GSD 2010) and western Cyprus (Vita-Finzi 1990) strongly suggests that at least the southern twothirds of the island of Cyprus that are underlain by Fig. 8. Plot of marine geochronology v. age and sea-level curves; red line is reconstruction (+12 m) for Red Sea by Siddall et al. (2003), including high-resolution (+12 m) section for MIS3 interval. Black line is reconstruction curve from Shackleton et al. (2000) for Atlantic coast of Iberian Peninsula. Fig. 9. Plot of Holocene age data and Holocene SL curves for Eastern Mediterranean from Kelletat (2005). The three SL curves shown by Kelletat vary owing to different sedimentological and geomorphological arguments. the Troodos Ophiolite have been uplifted uniformly since the latest Pleistocene. In terms of uplift, the Troodos Ophiolite appears to be behaving as a coherent structural block; a similar conclusion was drawn by Kinnaird et al. (2011) andMcCallum &Robertson (1990).

Holocene uplift
A Holocene uplift rate can be estimated by comparing age and the elevation of the Holocene marine deposits with baseline Holocene SL curves of Kelletat (2005). The resulting plot (Fig. 9) shows that many deposits lie above the baseline curves, even though we are assuming no water column above our samples. This indicates that uplift has continued into Middle to Late Holocene times. This indication is in agreement with archaeological data from Hala Sultan Tekke (Å ström et al. 1983) on the western side of the Main Salt Lake that suggest that SL during Late Bronze Age occupation was approximately at present SL; from the Phoenician harbour of Bamboula on the Mediterranean coast by Morhange et al. (2000), who report fossiliferous marine sediment at 40 cm above present SL; and tentatively from Enkomi, where stone ship moorings exist at c. 3-4 m above SL (Fig. 9). Using the elevations of samples 11/19/09-4, 5 and 6 collected from the mouth of the palaeo-estuary, which are c. 4-6 m above Holocene baseline curves and assuming no water column, an uplift rate of c. 1.2-2.1 mm/ year is indicated. Using the elevations of Posidonia oceanic mats (samples 11/21/09 -2 and 3), which are c. 2.0-3.5 m above baseline curves and assuming no water column, an uplift rate of c. 1.2-2.1 mm/year also is indicated. If indications of past SL at the archaeological sites are used, then uplift rates of c. 1.1-1.7 (Hala Sultan Tekke), c. 1.1-1.4 (Bamboula) and tentatively c. 2.0-2.7 mm/year (Enkomi) are suggested for Middle to Late Holocene time.

Mechanisms of uplift
The island of Cyprus is fundamentally the massif of the Troodos Ophiolite. McCallum & Robertson (1990) concluded that the Troodos Ophiolite has experienced pulsed uplift in the Miocene, Pliocene and Pleistocene. Kinnaird et al. (2011) concluded that relatively high rates of uplift of the Troodos Ophiolite persisted into Middle and Late Pleistocene time. This study demonstrates that uplift continued into the Late Pleistocene and Holocene.
Our recognition of an island-wide uplift rate that is of orogenic magnitude leads to an important question on plate-margin tectonic processes: what mechanism drives this uplift?
We can envisage three broad categories of processes that could generate uplift: lithospheric response to glacial (climatic-driven) processes, diapirism from serpentinization of mantle rocks and tectonic crustal deformation. We cannot rule out some uplift from glacial processes, but addressing that is beyond the scope of this paper. Localized diapirism and uplift are occurring at Mt Olympus in the Troodos Mountains owing to serpentinization of the Troodos Ophiolite, but it is difficult to imagine this process as affecting the entire massif, particularly given the gravity anomaly beneath Cyprus (Harrison 1955). Therefore, we will consider only tectonic processes for uplift of Cyprus.
We view areas of high relief and steep slope on the Earth's surface as indicators of where active uplift is occurring. Looking at crustal relief and slope in the Cyprus region (Fig. 10a, b), our conclusion is that uplift is occurring in narrow zones along the coasts or nearby offshore. These zones trend dominantly NNW, NNE and east -west (+208), similar to those of structural trends found in the Troodos Ophiolite. It is our opinion that the zones of steep slope shown in Figure 10b correspond to fault zones that are reactivated Troodos structures.
Three fault zones (FZ) contribute to uplift of SE Cyprus (Fig. 11): NNW-trending Famagusta FZ, east -west-trending Latakia FZ and NNE-trending Larnaca FZ. Our mapping of the onshore portion of the Famagusta FZ found it to consist of parallel eastward-dipping, high-angle reverse faults. The westernmost strand, Enkomi fault, is expressed at the surface as a monoclinal fold that has uplifted Kiti Tower sand c. 10 -15 m; fracture-fill yielded an OSL age of 5.4 + 2.3 ka (Table 2), indicating that this fault has a Holocene history. The Latakia FZ and the Larnaca FZ form two sides of the Cyprus Basin, which is a Neogene pull-apart graben (Vidal et al. 2000;Harrison et al. 2010) -an area of transtension created by a left-step in a leftlateral, strike-slip system. The floor of the basin is only slightly deeper than the seafloor to the east (Fig. 10a), indicating that, rather than the basin subsiding, Cyprus is being uplifted around the area of transtension. Marine seismic data (Vidal et al. 2000) show the Latakia FZ to be a left-lateral, positive-flower structure with steeply dipping transpressive faults, consistent with focal-mechanism   Harrison et al. (2008), andGEOTER (2005). Offshore faults are interpreted from sea-floor relief and linear features. Beach-ball symbols show focal mechanisms for events M . 5.5 (dark areas are compressional quadrants) and filled-black circles are events .M4 for the period 1940-1992 from Salamon et al. (2003); open circles are epicentres after Pinar & Kalafat (1999) for the period April 1997 to January 1998. KRFZ, Kyrenia Range fault zone; OFZ, Ovgos fault zone; FFZ, Famagusta fault zone; HS, Herodotus Seamount. Yellow line is line of cross section. (b) Cross section from Larnaca Lowlands through the Cyprus Basin; onshore portion is from this report, offshore portion is after Vidal et al. (2000). M is the Messinian reflector; K is top of Cretaceous reflector from Vidal et al. (2000).
analyses (Papadimitriou & Karakostas 2006). The Larnaca FZ consists of braided faults that extend onshore for .35 km (Harrison & Tsiolakis 2007) and is part of a wider system of faults that accommodate displacement into the Cyprus Basin (Fig. 11b). Restraining bends along the Larnaca FZ have produced localized uplift, such as at Cape Kiti, where a draped beach-gravel has been uplifted c. 6.5 m. Two bivalves from this deposit yielded 14 C ages of 7083 + 100 and 7454 + 67 cal-year-bp. These values plot well above the steep section of the Holocene SL curves (Fig. 9); thus direct estimates of uplift rate are not feasible. However, indirectly, estimates of a Holocene uplift at Cape Kiti are possible by comparison with elevations of similar-aged deposits. Gifford (1978) collected Posidonia oceanica fibres from two holes drilled into the Larnaca Salt Lakes estuary (west of the Larnaca FZ) at elevations of 5.5 and 10.8 m below SL. Our calibration of his reported 14 C ages are 7217 + 267 and 6908 + 404 cal-year-bp, which are similar to ages of the Cape Kiti draped beach gravel. Relative to Gifford's (1978) estuarine deposits and assuming c. 2 m of water column, the draped beach gravel at Cape Kiti has been uplifted c. 10-15 m. These values suggest c. 1.4-2.0 mm/year of uplift at Cape Kiti over our estimate of regional Holocene uplift. This difference can be considered an approximate proxy for Holocene fault-slip rate along the Larnaca FZ there. On the north side of Larnaca, drill-hole and geophysical data indicate c. 45 m of post-Pliocene uplift across the Larnaca FZ and c. 2-3 m of uplift on the base of the Holocene marine section (Harrison & Tsiolakis 2007). Also, we attribute the closure of the Larnaca Salt Lakes palaeo-estuary at c. 2.5 ka to coastal uplift of c. 2-3 m owing to localized transpression and uplift along the Larnaca FZ. Earthquake-focalmechanism resolutions along the western margin of the Cyprus Basin (Salamon et al. 2003) are consistent with fault orientations and kinematics determined for the Larnaca FZ (Fig. 11a).
On the south side of Cyprus, zones of high-relief and slope occur dominantly offshore and trend WNW (Fig. 10a, b) along what we consider a restraining-bend section of the Cyprus transform (Harrison et al. , 2008 at the Anatolian-African plate boundary (Fig. 11). Focal mechanisms (Fig. 11a) are left-lateral and transpressive (Salamon et al. 2003), consistent with positive-flowerstructures imaged by marine geophysics (Vidal et al. 2000). The only onshore expression along this structural trend is in the Paphos area, where northdipping, high-angle thrusts faults have been mapped by GEOTER (2005). On the west side of Cyprus, high-relief and slope occur offshore along the northerly trending Paphos transform zone of Papazachos & Papaioannou (1999). Focal-mechanism resolutions there (Fig. 11a) are right-lateral strikeslip and transpressive along east-dipping surfaces (Papadimitriou & Karakostas 2006). The downward projections of the high-relief and slope gradients to seismogenic depths off the west coast of Cyprus closely coincide with concentrations of seismicity (Fig. 11c). A concave-northward, curved zone of high relief and slope occurs immediately offshore on the north coast of Cyprus (Fig. 10a, b); presumably, this is related to the Kyrenia Range thrust system.
We are impressed by spatial relationships and similarity of trends between the linear zones of high relief, seismicity and gravity gradients associated with the Troodos Ophiolite. It is our opinion that these phenomena and the uniform, island-wide Late Pleistocene -Holocene uplift are results of the western movement of the Troodos Ophiolite, which is driven by the escape tectonics of the Anatolian microplate (Fig. 1). We further believe that this movement is probably accommodated by slippage along pre-existing detachment fabric at the base of the ophiolite massif and underlying metamorphic -sole structural fabric. Gass & Masson-Smith (1963) determined from geophysical analysis that the base of the Troodos Ophiolite beneath Cyprus is a low-angle northwarddipping surface (Fig. 12a, b). A geophysical survey of the Eastern Mediterranean by Aal et al. (2001) shows a similar low-angle structure at the base of the Troodos Ophiolite, which overlies continental crust in their lithospheric cross section. There are other low-angle, northward-dipping structures of regional significance (Figs 1 & 12c) known to exist in northern Cyprus, such as the Ovgos FZ (Harrison et al. , 2008 and the Kyrenia Range FZ (Robertson 2000;Harrison et al. , 2008; and both structural zones have accommodated contraction during the Neogene (Robertson, 2000;Harrison et al. , 2008. As first noted by Kempler & Garfunkel (1994), the Cilicia Basin north of Cyprus is not affected by regional compression, indicating that compression/transpression along the Anatolian plate boundary is absorbed with Cyprus, which is fundamentally the Troodos ophiolite.
We suggest the possibility that, accompanying neotectonic deformation along the margins of the Troodos ophiolite, the low-angle detachment fault at the base of the Troodos also has been active during the Neogene (Fig. 12c). In this hypothesis, which is similar to a proposal by McCallum & Robertson (1990) that called for under-thrusting from the south of a continental crustal block beneath Cyprus, re-activation of the basal detachment fault has contributed to partitioning of strain and uplift of the Troodos Ophiolite in the form of a tectonic wedge. This model is similar to that described by Langenheim et al. (2005) and Graymer et al. (2007) for tectonic wedging along a restraining bend along the San Andreas fault zone. We envisage this tectonic wedge as being driven south and southwestward over continental crust that is restrained from southward movement by the Cyprus-restrainingbend section of the transform plate boundary. Such a suggestion has strong implications for seismic and tsunami hazards and warrants further investigated.