The Ankara mélange in north-central Anatolia (Turkey) is an archetype of colored mélange within the Alpine–Himalayan orogenic belt, and is part of the Izmir–Ankara–Erzincan suture zone (IAESZ) between the Sakarya Continent (SC) in the North and the Central Anatolian Crystalline Complex (CACC) in the South. In the western section of the mélange, it consists mainly of blocks and imbricate thrust sheets of ophiolites, Middle–Late Triassic to Cretaceous seamount basalts and debris flow deposits, and late Permian, high-to-medium-pressure (P) rocks in a sheared serpentinite, volcaniclastic, and/or muddy-silty matrix, which displays major differences in the internal lithostratigraphical makeup along the ~E-W-trending IAESZ. We define this section of the Ankara Mélange as a subduction–accretion mélange within an intraoceanic environment that developed within the northern branch of Neotethys during the Permian to Maastrichtian. In the eastern section of the Ankara Mélange, the Jurassic–Cretaceous and Permian limestone blocks occur in a serpentinite and mudstone matrix of the mélange. Megablocks of carbonate rocks represent fragments of the Sakarya continent that were incorporated into the mélange during the final closure stage of the northern branch of Neotethys and the ensuing continental collision in the Lutetian. Upper Cretaceous–early Tertiary arc-related intrusive and extrusive rocks, and Eocene volcanic rocks formed on the Ankara mélange complex along the IAESZ. Thus, the Ankara Mélange along the IAESZ provides a complete record of the geology of the Northern Neotethys, from an intraoceanic subduction–accretion complex to an arc continent, and later to a continent–continent collision mélange.