The Beypazar-Cayrhan oil shale deposit is situated 100-130 km northwest of Ankara in central Anatolia, within a northeast-southwest-oriented Neogene basin that is approximately 70 km long and 25 km wide. The oil shale beds occur in a thick Late Miocene sequence within the Hrka formation, and were deposited in an extended lake. Besides oil shale, the Neogene basin of Beypazar also contains lignite, trona, and thenardite as valuable raw materials. The vegetation of the Beypazar lacustrine basin was dominated by trees, and palynological analysis reveals the existence of a swamp-forest developed in a subtropical to warm-temperate humid climate. Finally, the oil shale of Beypazar-Cayrhan basin is, on average, of low quality (the average upper calorific value is 840 kcal/kg [= 3.5 MJ/kg] and the oil content is 5.4% respectively 60 l/t), and, due to the tectonic situation, low cost open-cast mining is precluded. Therefore, the industrial utilization of the oil shale is not economical under present conditions and is thus not recommended. This is due to the (1) on-average poor oil shale quality, (2) complicated geologic structure, and (3) necessity of expensive underground mining.