The Tectonic Ecology of the Black Sea

Celal Sengor¹ and Boris NatalIn^2
1Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey
²N/A, N/A,

The Black Sea formed within a complicated area. It had two orogenic collages plastered against each other and fragments of one Gondwana-Land bound continental margin orogen: the Scythides, and the two parts of the Cimmerides. It began opening as a consequence of Alpide subduction of Neo-Tethyan ocean floor in the Aptian-Albian interval and at least in its eastern part, clearly split a continental margin arc. Eastwards it clearly did not connect with the earlier Flysch trough of the Greater Caucasus and neither did it have any relation to the ongoing Cimmeride shortening as late as the Nish-Trojan trough formation. It disrupted a pre-existing fabric, but it is remarkable that the Andrusov Ridge exactly parallels the old Scythide/Cimmeride fabric of en-echelon arc segments.
It evolved as a marginal basin of Japan-Sea type and even in its history of rear-arc shortening it greatly resembles the present structure of the Japan Sea. After the Miocene Arabia/Eurasia final collision, Black Sea began shortening as far east as Zonguuldak. West of there it was extending north-south in unison with Bulgaria, Macedonia and Greece.
It is remarkable how 'continental' its behaviour is. We compare this with that of the Tarim Basin and suggest that the Tarim is perhaps a palaeo-Black Sea.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90072 © 2007 AAPG and AAPG European Region Conference, Athens, Greece