Abstract
The pollen diagram of a deep drilling on the Mediterranean Ridge in Eastern Mediterranean offers two types of pollen spectra. The spectrum of the terrigenous turbidites of the major part of the drilling includes pollen which was carried to the sea by the Nile, and deposited by gravity bottom currents on an abyssal plain. The spectrum of the pelagic foraminiferal oozes of the upper levels of the drilling includes peri-Mediterranean pollen from Mediterranean and Ralkano-Caucasian steppes and forests, which was carried by air to the surface of the sea, and reached the bottom whichever its topography. The diagram suggests an uplift of the abyssal sea-floor after the deposition of the first pollen spectrum type, before and during the deposition of the second one. This tectonics appears as the consequence of the movement of the lithospheric plates in this area. Squeezed between the two large African-Arabic and Eurasian plates which move toward each other, two small plates move quickly, the Egean toward South-West, the Turkish toward West. The Egean plate is overthrusting the Levantine basin and compres¬ sing into a ridge its abyssal sedimentary layers. The Levantine oceanic crust dips beneath the Hellenic Arc along the Hellenic Trench. This compression is evidenced in the pollen diagram.
Published Version
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