Plio-Quaternary history of the Turkish coastal zone of the Enez-Evros Delta: NE Aegean Sea

Abstract

The Enez-Evros Delta, NE Aegean Sea, is located in one the most important wetlands in the world with its sandy offshore islands, abandoned channel mouths, sand-dunes, shoals, marshlands, saline lagoons and saltpans. It comprises very well developed sedimentary units and a prodelta lying on an older submarine delta. The present day elevations of the middle-late Pleistocene marine terraces indicate a regional tectonic uplift in the area. Due to lack of geophysical and bore hole data and partly due to its strategic position, the structural and stratigraphic features of the submarine extension of the delta are not known in detail. In this paper, PlioQuaternary history of this delta and its submarine part on the Turkish shelf was explored by using highresolution shallow reflection seismic profiles. The delta is formed by the alluvial deposits of the Enez-Evros River and shaped by their interaction with the sea. It takes place in front of a large and protected ancient bay which was filled rapidly over millennia. The sediments in the plateau off the river are principally pro-deltaic with muddy areas near the river mouths changing to muddy sand further out. The sea-level changes in PlioQuaternary were characterised by three different seismic stratigraphic units on the folded Miocene limestone basement. In the late Pleistocene, the shelf area over an Upper Miocene basement was flooded during the Riss-Würm interglacial period, exposed in the Würm glacial stage, and flooded once again during the Holocene transgression.

An updated database of Holocene relative sea level changes in NE Aegean Sea

“…3a) indicate that RSL in this area was always higher than in sector B. This may have been controlled by the regional uplift trend described both on the Greek (Syrides et al, 2009;Pavlopoulos et al, 2012a) and Turkish coasts (Alpar, 2001). This interpretation seems to be confirmed by one index point from Lafrouda lagoon (mainland Greece) placing the sea level at À0.65 m at w2.8 ka BP.…”

Using a Multi-Proxy Approach to Detect and Date a Buried part of the Hellenistic City Wall of Ainos (NW Turkey)

“…Throughout history, Ainos has had a threefold unique location with direct access to the open Aegean Sea, to its hinterland via the Hebros, as well as a widely ramified road system. Therefore, the city acted as a hub for the diverse traffic activities between the Balkans, Anatolia, the Black Sea region, and the Aegean Sea [24,26,27].…”

“…The ongoing uplift during the late Quaternary is evident from marine terraces, backed with the finds of marine fossils at the northern foot of the Hisarlık Dagı highlands [32]. As in the cases for many river valleys bordering the Aegean Sea, the postglacial sea-level rise created a marine embayment that reached far inland and in case of the Hebros valley region nearly as far as the modern town ofİpsala, i.e., 26 km inland ( Figure 1) [5,6,24].…”

“…At a distance, the Hisarlık Dagı highlands, composed of late Tertiary volcanic rocks, rise up to 385 m (Figure 1). Nowadays, the Dalyan-Gölü is separated from the Aegean Sea by a complex barrier beach system; each year in autumn, it is opened for fishing purposes (Figure 2) [24,26,27]. The environs of Enez are characterised by swampy marshes and small coastal lakes; the ephemeral ones receive their water supply by rainfall and the channel flow of the Hebros [26,[28][29][30][31].…”

“…">Geographical SettingEnez (ancient Ainos) is located in the remote westernmost area of Turkish Thrace, in the direct vicinity of the river mouth of the Hebros that debouches into the Aegean Sea by creating an extensive deltaic floodplain of 180 km 2 between the Greek city Alexandroupoli and the Turkish city Enez. The terminal 215 km of its modern river course forms the border between Greece and Turkey (Figure 1) [24,25].…”