Sedimentary and faunal signatures of the post-glacial marine drowning of the Pontocaspian Gemlik “lake” (Sea of Marmara)

Postglacial floodings of the Marmara Sea: molluscs and sediments tell the story

“…Dysaerobic conditions are common in Holocene intervals between 10,600 and 6,400 years BP (Çağatay et al 2000). In the present study area, dysoxic intervals (facies F2 and F3, and intervals containing the TurritellaCorbula association) were reported from Gemlik Gulf (Taviani et al 2014). They were also found in cores from the southern Marmara shelf, indicating the episodic spreading of such conditions into shallow water habitats.…”

“…Finally, shells of Dreissena rostriformis from the uppermost part and Euxinipyrgula cf. lincta from the lower part of lacustrine deposits from Gemlik Gulf yielded uncalibrated ages of 13,950 ± 65 and 15,860 ± 90 years BP respectively Taviani et al 2014). In order to avoid confusion, available uncalibrated AMS and conventional 14 C dates (without reservoir correction and without calibration to tree rings) are given in Table 2.…”

“…Fourteen species represent the brackish PontoCaspian fauna (cf. İslamoğlu and Chepalyga 1998;Taviani et al 2014), one species (Ecrobia cf. ventrosa, which also might include E. maritima) is euryhaline, and all other 87 species are marine (upper mesohaline to polyhaline).…”

“…It is dominated by taxa that typify the late Pleistocene Neoeuxinian fauna of the Black Sea Basin, indicating brackish water lake conditions (salinity up to 8-13 psu; Arkhangel'skiy and Strakhov 1938; Nevesskaja 1963Nevesskaja , 1965Nevesskaja , 1974Badgasaryan et al 1966;İslamoğlu and Chepalyga 1998;Yanko-Hombach 2007;Yanko-Hombach et al 2007;Taviani et al 2014). Euxinipyrgula lincta and E. milachevitchi (Golikov and Starobogatov 1966) are known from the lemans of the northern Black Sea, the Azov Sea and the Danube delta (Zhadin 1965;Kantor and Sysoev 2006;Wilke et al 2007).…”

“…In intervening times the Marmara Sea was either an isolated (brackish or fresh water) lake or was connected to the Black Sea Basin during episodic overflow events, the latest of which occurred during the BLate Neoeuxinian^at ca. 13-18 ka (Andrussov 1896(Andrussov , 1900İslamoğlu and Chepalyga 1998;Çağatay et al 2000;İslamoğlu 2002;Bahr et al 2005;Hiscott et al 2007;Badertscher et al 2011;Eriş et al 2011;Taviani et al 2013Taviani et al , 2014. During the transition from the last glacial maximum (LGM) to the Holocene, the glacioeustatic sea-level rise drove major hydrological and sedimentary processes in the Marmara Basin (Aksu et al 1999;Çağatay et al 1999, 2003, 2009, 2015Ergin et al 1999;Hiscott et al 2002Hiscott et al , 2007Kaminski et al 2002;Major et al 2002Major et al , 2006Kerey et al 2004;Eriş et al 2007Eriş et al , 2008Eriş et al , 2011McHugh et al 2008;Vidal et al 2010) and the Bosphorus/Dardanelles straits (Gökaşan et al 2005(Gökaşan et al , 2006(Gökaşan et al , 2008(Gökaşan et al , 2010.…”