Discussion: a critique of Possible waterways between the Marmara Sea and the Black Sea in the late Quaternary: evidence from ostracod and foraminifer assemblages in lakes İznik and Sapanca, Turkey, Geo-Marine Letters, 2011

Abstract

The identification of past connection routes between the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara, other than the traditional one through to the Bosphorus Strait, would be of considerable interest to the international scientific community.

Reply to Discussion: a critique of Possible waterways between the Marmara Sea and the Black Sea in the late Quaternary: evidence from ostracod and foraminifer assemblages in lakes İznik and Sapanca, Turkey, Geo-Marine Letters, 2011

“…In their Discussion, Yaltırak et al (2012) have challenged the interpretation of microfaunal data presented in a recent paper of ours (Nazik et al 2011), in which a number of possible waterways between the Marmara Sea and the Black Sea in the late Quaternary were suggested on the basis of marine ostracod and foraminifer assemblages found in surface sediments of lakes İznik and Sapanca, Turkey. First of all, Yaltırak et al (2012) apparently misunderstood our time frame of late Quaternary to mean the last 12,500 years or so, despite the fact that the term "late" was used in a relative sense.…”

“…Furthermore, we contend that the evidence presented in the critique by Yaltırak et al (2012) is essentially circumstantial and, in part, also highly conjectural. Nevertheless, they raise many issues which clearly merit future investigation, supporting the conclusions drawn already by Gürbüz and Leroy (2010) in this domain.…”

“…First of all, Yaltırak et al (2012) apparently misunderstood our time frame of late Quaternary to mean the last 12,500 years or so, despite the fact that the term "late" was used in a relative sense. Nevertheless, as absolute age datings are not available, we concede that the use of "late" may have been misleading and that it would have been more appropriate to refer simply to the Quaternary.…”

“…Nevertheless, they raise many issues which clearly merit future investigation, supporting the conclusions drawn already by Gürbüz and Leroy (2010) in this domain. In order to address each point of contention consecutively in this Reply, we have adopted the same article structure as Yaltırak et al (2012).…”

“…Based on the present-day elevation of dated marine terraces on the Gelibolu and Armutlu peninsulas, Yaltırak et al (2012) determined an average uplift rate of 0.3 mm/year. When applying this uplift rate uniformly for the last 500 ka, they come to the conclusion that links between the Gemlik Gulf and Lake İznik via the Karsak Sill (+85 m) may possibly have existed in the periods 475-575 and 380-420 ka BP.…”