Conference:
4th Congress “Environment and Identity in the Mediterranean “the Messinian salinity crisis, 19-25 July, 2004, Corté, France.
Authors:
Georges Clauzon, Jean-Pierre Suc, Fabienne Orszag-Sperber, Speranta-Maria Popescu.
Abstract:
Several field trips have been realized in the northern Aegean sea (Serries – Kavala region) in 1991. On these occasions, Gilbert delta type fan deposits have been evidenced., for example in the area of Karyani. A recent field trip in 2002 offered the opportunity to observe outstanding Gilbert delta fan deposits along the new coastal highway Tessaloniki – Kavala (E90) in the area Acto Sea Kerdylion. During this news field trip it has also been possible to observe a clear erosional surface at the base of the Gilbert delta fan construction. At Acropotamos, the erosional surface cuts evaporites (gypsum) and is overlain by foreset beds of a Gilbert delta, the bottom set beds of which being nearby exposed southward. An intensive work for dating these deposits has been recently done by Snel et al.,(in press). According to their biostratigraphic results, evaporites from Akropotamos belong to the Messinian while deposits overlying the erosional surface belong to the earliest Zanclean. The erosional surface with separate the Messinian deposits from the Zanclean Gilbert delta sediments in this area is an additional argument for the Clauzon et al.’s scenario (1996) : evaporites from Akropotamos correspond to the first step of the salinity crisis (first fall in sea-level causing the coastal evaporites), the second step (intense sea-level drawdown and desiccation of the Mediterranean) is locally marked by the erosional surface. the erosional surface could be coeval with the deep basin evaporites well-known off-shore in the Prinos Basin (Proedru & Sidiropoulos, 1992). Accordingly, the Messinian-Zanclean Mediterranean eustatic cycle is completely represented in the northern Aegean region.