The last sea level changes in the Black Sea: evidence from the seismic data

High resolution shallow seismic data collected from the southwestern shelf of the Black Sea indicate five different seismic stratigraphical units. The lower three of them belong to the Upper Cretaceous-Eocene, Oligocene-Miocene and Early Quaternary (prior to Holocene) sediments, respectively. These units are considered as a basement for the recent sediments deposited related to the latest connection of the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. The surface of these units are truncated to form an etchplain developed before the Flandrian transgression. The fourth unit covers the older units by an onlap. Its contact with the older units seen at -105 m is the shoreline of the Black Sea prior to the last major sea-level change. The fifth unit has been deposited since drowning of the Black Sea shelf. The principal cause of drowning of the Black Sea shelf is not only the last sea level rise as it is at the shelves of the Sea of Marmara but also the opening of the Strait of Istanbul. It is also realised by the comparison of the shelf area and the Catalca-Kocaeli etchplain that, the present continental part of this etchplain has been considerably uplifted with respect to the shelf area along the present shoreline. This uplifting must have also reactivated the faults around the Strait of Istanbul foundering the strait valley and, thus, permitting the Mediterranean waters to pass into the Black Sea, and initiating the sudden drowning of the Black Sea shelf. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved

On the origin of the Bosphorus

The Palaeozoic-Upper Cretaceous basement palaeomorphology of the Bosphorus (the Strait of Istanbul) bears the evidence of a valley of a palaeostream running to the Black Sea in the north, a palaeobasin deeper than -160 m opening to the Sea of Marmara in the south, and a barrier between these two features. This suggest that the northern part of the Bosphorus was formed mainly by fluvial activity, whereas the southern part developed as a basin by faulting. The recent sediment thickness exceeds 130 m in the basin, indicating that the southern part of the Bosphorus was once essentially depositional rather than an erosional

The effects of the North Anatolian Fault zone on the latest connection between Black Sea and Sea of Marmara

The development of the Strait of Istanbul is also one of the principal results of the tectonics which led to the evolution of the North Anatolian Fault Zone (NAFZ) in the Marmara Region 3.7 Ma ago. High resolution seismic profiles from the Marmara entrance of the Strait of Istanbul show a folding which occurred after the deposition of the parallel reflected Tyrrhenian sediments. Over the Tyrrhenian strata, a fondoform zone of a deltaic sequence and marine sediments of the latest sea level rising are present. These sediments also display syn-depositional folding. This situation implies that a local compressional stress field was created over the area probably since the Wurm Glacial age. This recent variation of the tectonic regime in the northern shelf of the Sea of Marmara may indicate a significant change in the development of the NAFZ through the Sea of Marmara. This variation of evolution of the NAFZ affected the latest development of the Strait of Istanbul via clockwise rotation of the Istanbul and Kocaeli peninsulas by right-lateral shearing between two zone bounding faults. This rotation has led to the development of NNE-SSW left-lateral faults in the Strait of Istanbul and local compressional and tensional areas explaining the compressional structures seen in the southern entrance of the Strait of Istanbul. Therefore, the latest Mediterranean-Black Sea connection was established by means of the sufficient deepening of the Bosphorus channel by a variation in the evolution of NAFZ through the Sea of Marmara. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved

RIFT FORMATION IN THE GAKOVA REGION, SOUTHWEST ANATOLIA - IMPLICATIONS FOR THE OPENING OF THE AEGEAN SEA

The time of the onset and the nature of the extension in the Aegean area have been problematic owing to the confusion of neotectonic replacement structures with neotectonic revolutionary structures. This paper concerns two rift systems of different ages and orientations in the Gokova region of southwestern Anatolia. The first system has a northwest-southeast trend with a Middle to Upper Miocene infill, whereas the second system is orientated in an east-west direction and filled with Plio-Quaternary rocks. Structural and palaeomagnetic data indicate that the first system originally had a north-south trend, and then bodily rotated anticlockwise to its present orientation before the end of the Miocene. Both the orientations and the structural patterns of these cross-cutting rift systems suggest that they resulted from two different and successive tectonic regimes. Regional geology suggests that the generative regime of the older system was characterized by north-south compression and related to the palaeotectonic evolution of southwestern Anatolia, whereas that of the younger system is characterized by north-south extension and relates to the neotectonic evolution of this region. This inference contradicts, at least in southwestern Anatolia, some recent claims that the extensional tectonics and the related rift formation in the Aegean region began in the early Miocene, with the alleged demise of the compressional palaeotectonics during the late Oligocene,but is consistent with older views that placed the onset of north-south extension into the later middle Miocene. The formation of the Aegean Sea seems to be the result of these two complicated and contrasting, succesive tectonic regimes that have affected this region since middle Miocene times

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