Sea-level changes during the late Pleistocene-Holocene on the southern shelves of the Black Sea

Seismic profiles and gravity cores collected from shelf areas off the Sakarya Delta and Thrace Peninsula, together with available previous studies, were evaluated in this research. A masjhoerl f-crossing erosional unconformity was observed, lying as deep as-120 m along the southern margin of the Black Sea. This erosional surface indicates a lowstand of the Black Sea's lake. The present shelf edge was therefore a former paleoshore environment of the preexisting Neoeuxinian basin. Unit 1 overlies the erosional surface and includes a widespread, thin mud drape, the Sakarya Delta, and various irregular depositional features off the Thrace Peninsula. Unit 2 was deposited at the shelf edge and consists of a lowstand sedimentary wedge (off the Sakarya Delta) and seaward prograding clinoforms (off the Thrace Peninsula), all indicative of deposition during the lowstand. Radiometric dates from sedimentary cores collected above the erosional unconformity vary between 11.8 and 8.6 ky BP. Further studies will be required to obtain a better understanding of the timing and intensity of these sea-level changes. © 2007 Springer

Pleistocene water intrusions from the Mediterranean and Caspian Seas into the Black Sea

The hydrological balance of the Black Sea is governed by riverine input and by the exchange with the Mediterranean Sea. A speleothem record from a cave in northern Turkey that tracks the isotopic signature of Black Sea surface water suggests an open connection to the Mediterranean Sea in at least twelve periods in the past 670,000 years