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Abstract:The Danube / Kisalföld Basin is the north-western sub-basin of the Pannonian Basin System. The lithostratigraphic subdivision of the several-km-thick Upper Miocene to Pliocene sedimentary succession related to Lake Pannon has been developed independently in Slovakia and Hungary. A study of the sedimentary formations across the entire basin led us to claim that these formations are identical or similar between the two basin parts to such an extent that their correlation is indeed a matter of nomenclature only. Nemčiňany corresponds to the Kálla Formation, representing locally derived coarse clastics along the basin margins (11-9.5 Ma). The deep lacustrine sediments are collectively designated the Ivanka Formation in Slovakia, while in Hungary they are subdivided into Szák (fine-grained transgressive deposits above basement highs, 10.5 -8.9 Ma), Endrőd (deep lacustrine marls, 11.6 -10 Ma), Szolnok (turbidites, 10.5 -9.2 Ma) and Algyő Formations (fine-grained slope deposits, 10 -9 Ma). The Beladice Formation represents shallow lacustrine deltaic deposits, fully corresponding to Újfalu (10.5 -8.7 Ma). The overlying fluvial deposits are the Volkovce and Zagyva Formations (10 -6 Ma). The synoptic description and characterization of these sediments offer a basin-wide insight into the development of the basin during the Late Miocene. The turbidite systems, the slope, the overlying deltaic and fluvial systems are all genetically related and are coeval at any time slice after the regression of Lake Pannon initiated about 10 Ma ago. All these formations get younger towards the S, SE as the progradation of the shelf-slope went on. The basin got filled up to lake level by 8.7 Ma, since then fluvial deposition dominated.

Major deepwater sand accumulations are known to be connected to sea-level lowstands in marine basins, due to the relative lack of accommodation space on the shelf. This model was tested for the Late Miocene Lake Pannon, a large endorheic lake depositing a sedimentary succession up to 3-4 km thick. The progradation of the shelf between 9.7 and 6 Ma was tracked along a 2D seismic network. The shelf-edge trajectory indicates continuous, moderate lake-level rise between 9.7 and 9 Ma. This is followed by alternating intervals of quasi-steady and rapidly rising relative lake level with a period of ca. 250 ky. However, due to the lack of significant lake-level drops, no third-order sequence boundary was identified in the studied time span (9.7-6 Ma). The sand ratio of the deepwater deposits does not show strong correlation with these lakelevel changes; moreover, the units deposited under rising lake-level conditions generally contain slightly larger proportion of sand. These features can be explained by the climatic origin of water-level rises: increasing precipitation enhances not only water inflow, but also sediment influx, which can overwhelm the well-known effect of accommodation space on the sand transport toward the deep water. The results suggest that shelf-margin trajectory might not be an efficient tool for predicting deepwater accumulations of sand in endorheic lacustrine basins.

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