Messinian event in the black sea

Abstract

Three holes were drilled during the 1975 DSDP Leg 42B drilling the Black Sea. A section from Hole 380, at 2107 m water depth on the western edge of the abyssal plain, is 1074 m thick, and provides the most complete stratigraphic section. Dating of the sediments is based upon (1) fossil evidence from pollen, crustaceans, benthic foraminifera, and diatoms, (2) correlation with climatic changes and with unusual isochronous events that have been dated elsewhere, (3) paleomagnetic data, and (4) estimates of sedimentation rate. The history of Black Sea sedimentation recorded by the DSDP cores includes black shale sedimentation during the Late Miocene, followed by periodic chemical sedimentation from Late Miocene to Early Quaternary, and a change to dominantly terrigenous sedimentation from the Middle Quaternary. These hemipelagic and turbiditic sediments were deposited in lacustrine and brackish marine environments. The Messinian sediments, however, consist of stromatolitic dolomite, oolitic sands, and coarse gravels, deposited in supratidal and intertidal environments. The intercalation of the shallow-water sediments in a deep-water sequence suggests a drastic lowering of the water-level within the Black Sea basin during the Messinian so that the edge of the present abyssal plain was then the edge of a shallow lake. The Messinian draw-down phase of the Black Sea was in existence for about 100,000 years during the Lago-Mare stage of the salinity crisis. The evaporated waters formed an alkaline lake before it was drowned by a brackish marine transgression correlative to the Trubi transgression of the Mediterranean.