Eocene and Later Formations surrounding the Dardanelles

Abstract

I. Pre-Eocene Formations A description of the Tertiary and post-Tertiary deposits surrounding the Dardanelles can hardly be made clear without some reference to the older rocks upon which they rest, but our knowledge of the conditions under which the pre-Eocene strata in Thrace and Anatolia were deposited and broken up is as yet very limited. The pre-Eocene sedimentary formations are, as a rule, so highly metamorphosed that no fossils are visible; and they are so much dislocated that the general appearance is that of an archipelago of old rocks in the Eocene Sea. A succession of mica- and hornblende-schists, crystalline limestones, and marble, with, occasional gneiss or granite and serpentine, upon which the Tertiary deposits rest unconformably, can be traced from Olympus and Athos, along the Thracian coast, including the island of Thasos, into the Sea of Marmora. The Eocene shore-lines and fringing coral-reefs can be identified in some instances, but an inspection of the map (Pl. XXI) will show the probable islands of the pre-Eocene archipelago more clearly than any description. I shall, therefore, only refer to a few localities hitherto unnoticed, or where some correction to previous accounts appears to be necessary. At Tenedos Island I found the south-eastern face for about 2 miles in length, from Cape Marmora to Oinos Point, to be formed of white marble. Along the southern shore of the Sea of Marmora, a stretch of about 35 miles, from Boz Burnu to Kara Burnu, and thence halfway up the Gulf of Artaki, shows,

From Tethys to Eastern Paratethys: Oligocene depositional environments, paleoecology and paleobiogeography of the Thrace Basin (NW Turkey)

“…The Danişmen Formation overlies the Osmancık formation concordantly (Turgut and Eseller 2000). It extends from the Gelibolu Peninsula into the Greek part of the basin and occurs even on the Imroz and Limnoz islands (English 1904;Kopp et al 1969). The thickness of the formation ranges from 50 to 350 m. It comprises greenish grey shales, claystones, coals interbedded with fine grained sandstones and silts (Ç aglayan and Yurtsever 1998).…”

Middle Pleistocene bivalves of the İznik lake basin (Eastern Marmara, NW Turkey) and a new paleobiogeographical approach

“…Until the present work, there was no faunal or radiometric dating of the Middle Pleistocene records, except in the western part of the Marmara region. This study demonstrates that the middle Pleistocene PontoCaspian originated bivalves lived not only in the vicinity of the Dardanelles (Chaudian/Bakunian: Andrussow 1890; English 1904;Taner 1983;Erol 1985Erol , 1992Erol and Ç etin 1995;Tchepalyga 1995) but also in the eastern Marmara region. However, the present faunal data represents the earlier time interval (early Khazarian) than the previous one, which is the first and surprising finding for the region.…”

“…Conflicting answers to these questions have been proposed. In particular, debate about the Middle Pleistocene time interval is remarkable; while some authors have suggested that the Marmara Sea was a paleogeographical part of the Ponto-Caspian region (Andrussow 1890;English 1904;Nevesskaya 1963Nevesskaya , 2007Federov 1993;Taner 1983;Erol 1985Erol , 1992Erol and Ç etin 1995;Tchepalyga 1995), others believe that a transgression of Mediterranean origin inundated the Marmara Sea basin, an idea based on insufficient paleontological and paleogeographic interpretations (Sakınç et al 1995;Sakınç and Yaltırak 1997;Alpar and Yaltırak 2002). Thus, the Middle Pleistocene stratigraphy of sedimentary sequences in the region is still poorly understood and the paleogeographic relationships are not yet well explained.…”

The curious case of Karl Nagalhard and the central European influence on the early studies on the Cenozoic paleobotany in Turkey

“…Unfortunately, Ottoman Turkey could not meet the requirements for being a modernized state and society and it lacked a scientific education policy to train native specialists to reap the benefits of its natural resources like coal. Additional brown coal occurrences in the former Ottoman possessions in the Balkans (e.g., Boué, 1836Boué, , 1840Viquesnel, 1868), at the Black Sea coast of Istanbul, (e.g., Olivier, 1801;Strickland, 1836;de Tchihatcheff, 1850de Tchihatcheff, , 1851Viquesnel, 1850Viquesnel, , 1868, at the southern sections of Tekirdağ and Edirne (e.g., Olivier, 1801;Viquesnel, 1868;English, 1902English, , 1904, in the vicinity of Lapseki, Çanakkale (e.g., de Tchihatcheff, 1851de Tchihatcheff, , 1864, and in various parts of Anatolia (e.g., de Tchihatcheff, 1850), were all mentioned in accounts by foreign explorers and geologists. Despite the discovery of the black (bituminous) coal in the Carboniferous Zonguldak Coal Basin and a wider distribution of brown coal (e.g., Baytaran, 2010;Üçışık Erbilen and Şahin, 2015) all around the country, the industrial and household use was still dependent on charcoal during the most part of the 19 th century (Karal, 1954;Ediger, 2005).…”

“…It goes without saying that the collected fossil plants from the land of Ottoman Turkey were evaluated by foreign paleontologists. Most of these fossils, either impressions of fossil leaves (or of other macroscopic parts) or silicified wood trunks, were briefly mentioned in the studies covering the Balkans (Boué, 1836(Boué, , 1840, the Gulf of İzmir (Forbes, 1845) and around the Sea of Marmara (Boué, 1840;de Tchihatcheff, 1851de Tchihatcheff, , 1864Viquesnel, 1868;English, 1904), without a formal description or taxonomic attribution. Laurus, Nerium, Olea, Salix, Quercus and Tamarix became the earliest identified fossil plant genera from Turkey by Hugh Edwin Strickland (1811Strickland ( -1853, the first professional geologist who studied Turkish territories with William John Hamilton (1805-1867), from the Neogene deposits around Izmir (Strickland, 1837).…”