--> Abstract: Tectonic History and Sedimentation of the Central and Southern Caspian Sea, by P. Z. Mamedov, C. E. Stelting, R. M. Kieckhefer, C. F. (Rick) Caskey, J. B. Murphy, and A. F. M. Bakhiet; #90942 (1997).

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Abstract: Tectonic History and Sedimentation of the Central and Southern Caspian Sea

MAMEDOV, PERVIS Z., CHARLES E. STELTING, ROBERT M. KIECKHEFER, C. F. (RICK) CASKEY, JANET B. MURPHY, and A. FATTAH M. BAKHIET

he central Caspian Sea was the passive continental margin north of the Tethys Sea from Middle Jurassic to Paleogene time. Sedimentation, originally part of a larger basin including the present-day Black Sea and the Greater Caucasus, records numerous carbonate and clastic depositional cycles. The southern Caspian Sea, in contrast, is a remnant Tethyan backarc basin that has been adjacent to the rapidly uplifting Greater Caucasus Mountains since the Paleogene. Marine Mesozoic and Paleogene sediments are overlain by several kilometers of Plio-Pleistocene clastics sourced from the Kura and Volga River systems. Many of these sediments were derived from the eroding Lesser and Greater Caucasus Mountains, which formed as the Arabian Plate collided with Eurasia, first closing Tethys and later the back-arc basin. Continuing closure of the southern Caspian Sea has led to the formation of major compressional folds and associated strike-slip faults. Syntectonic sedimentation has been controlled by these structures as well as by fluctuating Caspian Sea level. Sequence-stratigraphic techniques suggest the presence of fluvial, deltaic and turbidite reservoirs, both in the central and southern Caspian.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90942©1997 AAPG International Conference and Exhibition, Vienna, Austria