Analysis of Plio-Quaternary deep marine systems and their evolution in a compressional tectonic regime, Eastern Black Sea Basin

Abstract

Facies architecture of submarine fans and channel–levee complexes in the Eastern Black Sea Basin and their evolution from the Late Miocene until the present day are studied using a three-dimensional seismic data set covering an area of approximately 1161 km2. The interpretation of the observations reveals the outcome of the changing interplay between rate of sedimentation and compressional tectonism in the area through time.The Upper Tertiary sedimentary succession in the Eastern Black Sea Basin is characterized by various depositional elements of northeasterly sourced turbidite systems that were deposited in a progressively deforming basin at settings ranging from lower to upper slope. Depositional elements interpreted from seismic character and geometry include canyons, canyon-confined channels, levees, mass transport complexes, sediment waves, sheets and hemipelagic drapes.Two anticlines formed in a compressional tectonic regime subdividing the study area into three mini-basins acted as sediment barriers and controlled the geometry of the basin, and thus, the accommodation space, throughout the Plio-Quaternary period. Sheets that were deposited due to abrupt reduction in structural slope gradients and knickpoints that mark the boundary between site of incision and site of deposition within canyons both have displayed southwestward migration through time, which clearly reflects the basinward advance of compressional deformation in the Eastern Black Sea Basin.