This cooperative study by Hungarian and American geologists and geophysicists, translated from the Hungarian, demonstrates the power of the combination of modern paleomagnetic techniques and seismic profiling in working out the stratig raphy of a basin, with only limited paleontologic and isotopic control. In the Békés basin (a subbasin of the Pannonian Basin), the Badenian-Sarmatian (16.5-12 Ma) section is relatively thin (0-275 m) and represents shallow water, principally nearshore and marine to brackish water environments. During latest Sarmatian and early Pannonian time (12-9 Ma), the Békés basin was starved, as other subbasins located along the margins of the Békés basin captured most of the sediment load carried by rivers. During this time interval, a combination of relatively low deposi tion rates and high subsidence rates produced great water depths (1000-1500 m) in the Békés basin. By middle Pannonian time (6-7 Ma), subbasins on the margins of the Békés basin had become filled with sediments as deltas gradually prograded across them. As a result of this infilling process, a platform was constructed across which rivers transported their sediment loads into the Békés basin. Thereafter, deltaic infilling of the Békés basin proceeded rapidly and rates of sediment accumu lation reached 1000 m/million years. More than 6 km of lacustrine sediments were deposited in the deeper parts of the basin.Indirect evidence suggests that lake levels in the Pannonian inland sea(a remnant of the Paratethys), although isolated from the world's oceans, were affected by eustatic sea-level changes. Four hiatuses identified by seismic profiles near the northern margin of the Pannonian Basin and inferred to represent non-deposition between 11.5 and 10.5, 7.9 and 7.6, 6.8 and 5.7, 5.4 and 4.6 million years ago. Comparing these hiatuses with the eustatic sea level change curves [8] the accor dance is close and systematic. This indicates that the sea level of the Pannonian Inland Sea that became gradually isolated from the world oceans fluctuated in the same phase as global sea level. The hiatus between 6.8 and 5.7 Ma is tentatively correlated with the Messinian global stage during which time evaporite deposition in the Mediterranean was widespread-the so-called "Messinian salinity crisis."
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