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

High frequency sea level fluctuations recorded in the Black Sea since the LGM

“…The buried, anastomosing fluvial channels that abruptly disappears below −90 m depth, and a unique wave-cut terrace between −95 and −100 m on the outer shelf are therefore consistent with a major level lowstand at somewhere around −100 m depth. An equivalent regional erosional truncation surface has also been recognized along the southern coast of the Black Sea (Demirbag et al, 1999;Gorur et al, 2001;Algan et al, 2007). A similar depth has also been deduced from a terrace on the northern shelf-edge (Major et al, 2002b).…”

“…In 1993, a new US-Russian-Turkish survey reexamined these lowstand shorelines and the river paleo-valleys of the Dniepr/Dniestr complex in more detail using very high resolution seismic reflection profiling methods and observed lowstand terraces (Ryan et al, 1997;Major et al, 2002a). Similar terraces have also been recognized on the Bulgarian shelf (Dimitrov, 1982;Genov, 2004) and on the northern Turkish shelf (Okyar et al, 1994;Demirbag et al, 1999;Ballard et al, 2000;Algan et al, 2002;Aksu et al, 2002b;Algan et al, 2007). Among these terraces, shells belonging to past coastal environments were dated between 19 to 9 kyr BP (Ostrovskiy et al, 1977a;Shcherbakov et al, 1978;Dimitrov, 1982;Lericolais et al, 2006).…”

Underwater Seascapes

“…The anastomosed buried fluvial channels described by (Lericolais et al 2009;Popescu et al 2004) that suddenly disappear below − 90 m depth and a unique wave-cut terrace on the outer shelf, with an upper surface varying between − 95 and − 100 m is therefore consistent with a major lowstand level situated somewhere around − 100 m depth. Precedent studies have already proposed a depth of − 105 m for this lowstand according to a regional erosional truncation recognised on the southern coast of the Black Sea (Algan et al 2007;Demirbag et al 1999;Gorur et al 2001) but also based on a terrace on the northern shelf edge (Major et al 2002).…”

“…They claim that the Black Sea was a vast freshwater lake, but then about 7,500 years BP later corrected to 8,400 years BP (Ryan 2007;Ryan et al 2003), the Mediterranean spilled over a sill at the Bosporus, creating the current communication between the Black and Mediterranean Seas. Subsequent work has been done both to support and to discredit this hypothesis, and archaeologists still debate it (Aksu et al 2002;Aksu et al 1999;Algan et al 2007;Balabanov 2007;Ballard et al 2000;Giosan et al 2009;Gorur et al 2001;Hiscott et al 2007;Kerr 2000;Lericolais et al 2009;Lericolais et al 2010;Major et al 2006;Major et al 2002;Ryan et al 2003;Uchupi and Ross 2000). Such a late reconnection will lead to a longer exposing of the Black Sea shelf allowing the population to settle near the coast.…”

Geological and Geomorphological Factors and Marine Conditions of the Azov‐Black Sea Basin and Coastal Characteristics as They Determine Prospecting for Seabed Prehistoric Sites on the Continental Shelf

“…A number of underwater shorelines were digitally reconstructed based on relief trend analysis, statistical analysis of recent sea bottom relief, and GIS modeling using Kriging methods of interpolation within grid areas of 100 × 100 (Larchenkov & Kadurin 2006 pronounced. Ballard et al (2000), Algan (2003), Algan et al (2007) and Lericolais et al (2007a,b;2010;2011) described a submerged coastline with wave-cut terraces and coastal paleodunes (Fig. 16.23g sea bottom in any transgressive scenario for the Black Sea corridor; (2) transgressive parasequences involve the accumulation of lagoonal and marine deposits during rising relative sea level and landward migration of a coastline over coastal plain deposits.…”