The Messinian Salinity Crisis in the Northeastern Aegean – Black Sea region.

Conference:

Abstracts book of 13th Congress RCMNS, 2-6 September 2009, Naples, Italy “Earth System Evolution and the Mediterranean Area”,  2-6 September 2009, Naples, Italy, Acta Naturalia de “L’Ateneo Parmense”, Parma: 45 (1): 116.

Authors:

Jean-Pierre Suc, Georges Clauzon, Rolando Armijo, Mihaela Carmen Melinte-Dobrinescu, Speranta-Maria Popescu, Gilles Lericolais, Hervé Gillet, M. Namık Çağatay, Gwénaël Jouannic, Jean‐Pierre Brun, Dimitrios Sokoutis, Gülsen Ucarkus, Ziyadin Çakır.

 

Abstract:

Several areas have been investigated in the Northeastern Aegean Sea, the region of the Sea of Marmara (Thrace: Gulf of Saros), Black Sea coastal area northwest Istanbul; Gelibolu Peninsula and Dardanelles Strait; Bithynia). This is a key-region because it is generally considered as the late Neogene passage zone between the Mediterranean and Paratethys (Popov et al., 2006), and has been severely affected by the North Anatolian Fault (McKenzie, 1972; Sengör et al., 1985). As Armijo et al. (1999) proposed that the MSC significantly impacted the region, we developed the following approaches: (1) field (including seismic) investigations in order to identify the Messinian Erosional Surface (MES) and characterize which sediments overlie the MES, (2) micropaleontological analyses for precisely dating (nannoplankton) deposits preceding and following the Messinian Salinity Crisis (MSC) and documenting the potential exchanges (dinoflagellates cycts) between the Aegean and Black seas (Gillet et al., 2007; Melinte-Dobrinescu et al., 2009).

The main results allow evidencing that:

  1. the subaerial (i.e. fluvial) erosion was strong at the outlet of the Serres Basin, relatively weak in the Gulf of Saros but intensive in the Black Sea shelf and slope west of Istanbul (Messinian canyon off Karacaköy reaching the Black Sea abyssal plain),
  2. the present-day Dardanelles Strait is almost continuously superimposed on a Messinian canyon which appears to have been cut by the main channel of an important fluvial drainage network,
  3. the main Messinian drainage channels in the southern Marmara are located in the areas of Gönen and Bursa,

and supports that the gateway which connected the Mediterranean and Paratethys in a twoway flow system just before and after the MSC appears to have not been located in the Marmara Sea area (Popescu, 2006). In some places such as in the Kavala Gulf and at Intepe (southern shore of the Dardanelles Strait), the two steps of the Messinian Salinity Crisis have been recorded (Melinte-Dobrinescu et al., 2009).