An offshore-onland transect across the north-eastern Black Sea basin (Crimean margin): Evidence of Paleocene to Pliocene two-stage compression

Tectonic Evolution of the Eastern Black Sea and Caucasus: an introduction

“…There is also good evidence of a compressional regime in this area in the Eocene (cf. Khriachtchevskaia et al 2010;Sheremet et al 2016a) in contiguous offshore regions, although they indicate that the most intense period of shortening began later. Significant volcanic activity also occurs in the Eocene in the study area, as reported by Sahakyan et al (2016) in the Lesser Caucasus and Hippolyte et al (2015) in the eastern Pontides.…”

The position and age of flysch deposits in the Crimean Mountains (Southern Ukraine).

“…In this area, they also sug gested the Early Cre ta ceous phase of ex ten sion and short en ing pe ri ods dur ing the Paleocene -Early Eocene, be fore the main Mid dle Eocene un con formity. Sheremet et al (2016b), on the ba sis of two in te grated transects from the eastern CM to the Sorokin Trough (north of the east ern BS; Fig. 2), doc u mented the Early Paleocene to Plio cene short en ing phases linked with the Neo-Tethys clo sure and up lift of the Great Cau ca sus.…”

Geometry and Cenozoic evolution of the Crimean fold-thrust belt from cross-section balancing and kinematic forward modeling

“…These studies provided a better regional correlation of the Mesozoic strata, which allows the reconstruction of the Cenozoic deformation in the Crimean fold-thrust belt along the southern rim of the peninsular. Offshore, seismic profiles detailed the structures of the Sorokin accretionary wedge and its transition to the onshore structures [Nikishin et al, 2015a, b;Sheremet et al, 2016b;Sydorenko et al, 2016] In this study, we present a balanced cross section and a kinematic forward model for the Crimean fold-thrust belt. Our analysis reveals thick-and thin-skinned deformation geometries in the onshore-offshore transition, which are related to the northwestward subduction of the Eastern Black-Sea basin under the Scythian platform.…”

“…The Upper Cretaceous-Eocene deposits (stage 2) cover the Triassic-Lower Cretaceous strata unconformably. The northern slope of the Crimean dome and the hinterland of the Crimean fold-thrust belt (north of the dome) preserve a continuous section of these platform deposits; their thickness varies from 0,3 to 8,0 km [Muratov, Sydorenko, 1969;Tchaikovsky et al, 2006;Sheremet at al., 2016b]. The platform sedimentation terminated in the middle Eocene due to uplift induced by the underthrusting of the East Black-Sea basin lithosphere below the Scythian plate [Nikishin et al, 2001;Pánek et al, 2009].…”

“…The Neogene consists mostly of shallow marine terrigenous-carbonate deposits. In Sorokin accretionary wedge, seismic reflection data record syn-tectonic growth strata from the Middle Oligocene to the Middle Pliocene [Sheremet et al, 2016b]. Offshore, a sharp disconformity, visible in the seismic sections, traces a major erosional surface; it is interpreted to record the Messinian crisis (∼6-5 Ma), resulting from an important sea level drop [Krijgsman et al, 2010;Sheremet et al, 2016b].…”