Identification and age of submarine Girkanian sediment beds (Upper Pleistocene) in the Caspian Sea

Chronology of the Late Pleistocene Caspian Sea hydrologic changes: A review of dates and proposed climate-induced driving mechanisms

“…The first reports on the Hyrcanian highstand from the northwest of the Caspian region and Manych valley have been made by Goretskiy in 1957and Popov in 1957and 1961. Lavrushin et al (2014 and Sorokin et al (2018) present very complete discussions on this highstand with nevertheless, different points of view. Indeed, the stratigraphic positioning of the Hyrcanian highstand remains unclear since time-discrepancies exist due to both geochronological and biostratigraphic data, and unknown relationships between Hyrcanian, overlying Early Khvalynian and underlying Late Khazarian deposits.…”

“…(Lokhin and Maev, 1990), and the related ages range between ca 80 and 19 kyr in the Northern Peri-Caspian while in the Northern Caspian Sea basin, they are all centered on ca 40 cal kyr BP (e.g. Varushchenko et al, 1987;Sorokin et al, 2018;Kurbanov et al, 2020;Yanina et al, 2020). This lowstand separates the Early Khvalynian highstand from the previous Late Khazarian highstand that took place probably between 130 and 76 kyr (e.g.…”

“…Nevertheless, transgressive Hyrcanian deposits (named also Girkanian) are known from the Northern Peri-Caspian and Manych areas (Fig. 1b) below the Atelian lowstand, and they were recently identified in seismic-acoustic profiles and sediment cores from the Northern Caspian Sea basin (Sorokin et al, 2018;Yanina et al, 2020). The age and stratigraphic position of this highstand are not well defined.…”

“…The age and stratigraphic position of this highstand are not well defined. Its age is estimated to be ca 120-90 kyr (Zubakov 1992;Kurbanov et al, 2018), ca 80 kyr (Sorokin et al, 2018;Yanina et al, 2018Yanina et al, , 2020 or even ca 43 cal kyr BP (Lavrushin et al, 2014) and stratigraphically it is not clear whether it constitutes an independent transgression, a part of the Late Khazarian or a part of the Early Khvalynian transgression. Major hydrological periods have been recognized for a long time especially in Russian literature; nevertheless, the associated sedimentary sequences are often incomplete or missing as it was highlighted by Svitoch and Makshaev (2020), and consequently their stratotypes are not established yet.…”

Environmental Variability Of The Ponto-Caspian And Mediterranean Basins During The Last Climatic Macrocycle

“…Another transgressive basin has been recently uncovered by drilling in the Northern Caspian, which is the earliest Khvalynian basin (Bezrodnykh et al 2014(Bezrodnykh et al , 2015Sorokin et al 2018), with mollusk fauna including Didacna subcatillus, D. zhukovi, D. parallella. Judging from the mollusk habitus, the sea was moderately warm.…”