Abstract:
During the late glacial, marine isotope Stage 2, the Marmara Sea transformed into a
brackish lake as global sea level fell below the sill in the Dardanelles Strait. A record of the
basin’s reconnection to the global ocean is preserved in its sediments permitting the extraction of
the paleoceanographic and paleoclimatic history of the region. The goal of this study is to
develop a high-resolution record of the lacustrine to marine transition of Marmara Sea in order to
reconstruct regional and global climatic events at 24 a millennial scale. For this purpose, we mapped
the paleoshorelines of Marmara Sea along the northern, eastern, and southern shelves at
Çekmece, Prince Islands, and Imrali, using data from multibeam bathymetry, high-resolution
subbottom profiling (chirp) and ten sediment cores. Detailed sedimentologic, biostratigraphic
(foraminifers, mollusk, diatoms), X-ray fluorescence geochemical scanning, and oxygen and
carbon stable isotope analyses correlated to a calibrated radiocarbon chronology provided
evidence for cold and dry conditions prior to 15 ka BP, warm conditions of the Bolling-Allerod
from ~15 to 13 ka BP, a rapid marine incursion at 12 ka BP, still stand of Marmara Sea and
sediment reworking of the paleoshorelines during the Younger Dryas at ~11.5 to 10.5 ka BP, and
development of strong stratification and influx of nutrients as Black Sea waters spilled into
Marmara Sea at 9.2 ka BP. Stable environmental conditions developed in Marmara Sea after 6.0
ka BP as sea-level reached its present shoreline and the basin floors filled with sediments
achieving their present configuration.
Description:
Author Posting. © Elsevier B.V., 2008. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Elsevier B.V. for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Marine Geology 255 (2008): 64-82, doi:10.1016/j.margeo.2008.07.005.
