New thermochronological data show that rapid Middle Miocene exhumation occurred synchronously along the Bitlis suture zone and in the southeastern Black Sea region, arguably as a far-field effect of the Arabia–Eurasia indentation. Collision-related strain focused preferentially along the rheological boundary between the multideformed continental lithosphere of northeastern Anatolia and the strong (quasi)oceanic lithosphere of the eastern Black Sea. Deformation in the southeastern Black Sea region ceased in late Middle Miocene time, when coherent westward motion of Anatolia and the corresponding activation of the North and East Anatolian Fault systems mechanically decoupled portions of the foreland from the Arabia–Eurasia collision zone.

The results of apatite fission-track analyses of the Western Pontides of NW Turkey point to three discrete episodes of Cenozoic exhumation correlatable with major supraregional tectonic events. (1) Paleocene–early Eocene exhumation reflected the closure of the İzmir–Ankara ocean. (2) Late Eocene–earliest Oligocene exhumation was the result of renewed tectonic activity along the İzmir–Ankara suture. (3) Late Oligocene–early Miocene exhumation recorded the onset of northern Aegean extension. Samples collected north and south of the tectonic contact between the two terranes forming the Western Pontides (i.e. İstanbul and Sakarya terranes) record the same cooling events, suggesting that such terranes were amalgamated in pre-Cenozoic times.