The Upper Miocene evaporite basins in the Mediterranean Region — a study in paleo- oceanography

Abstract

Zusammenfassung AbstractThe Mediterranan Sea is an evaporite basin that compensates its water deficit by inflow through the Straits of Gibraltar and the Bosporus. Excess salinities are discharged through a bottom counter current. In Plio-Pleistocene cooler periods a water surplus produced a surface outflow and a bottom inflow bringing in waters upwelling in the ancestral Canary current.Water circulation in modern evaporite basins can serve as an adequate model to explain ancient evaporites in the Mediterranean region. The last such high-salinity event comprises Upper Miocene evaporites stretching from southeastern Spain to the Caspian Sea, from the Carpathian Foreland to Yemen. They formed in a series of interconnected basins which pre-concentrated or locally diluted circulating bottom currents. Not normal oceanic saltwater but brackish Ponto-Caspian waters were the source of supply during a period when the Straits of Gibraltar were closed. R6sum4La Medit6rran6 est un bassin 6vaporitique, qui comble son d6ficit d'eau par un influx /t travers le d6troit de Gibraltar et le Bospore. Un surplus d'eaux sal6es est d6eharg6 par un eontre-courant de fond. Dans les p6riodes plus froides du Plio-Pleistoc6ne, un exc6s d'eau produisait un courant de sortie a ]a surface et un influx au fond, qui faisait entrer des eaux profondes remont6es dans le eourant de Canarie.La circulation d'eau dans les bassins modernes 6vaporitiques peut servir comme un mod61e appropri6 pour expliquer les aneiennes 6vaporites de la r6gion m6diteran6enne, La derni6re phase de haute salinit6 est indiqu6e par les 6vaporites du Mioc6ne sup6rieur, qui s'6tendent de l'Espagne sud-orientale jursqu'ft lamer Caspienne, des *) Author's address: Dr. P. SONNENFELD, Professor of Geology, University of Windsor, Windsor N9B 8P4, Ontario, Canada. 1133Aufs~itze avant-pays des Carpates jusqu'~t Y6men. Elles se formalent das une s~rie de bassins li6s entr'eux, dans lesquels se produisait une pr6concyentration ou une dilution locale des eux profondes. Lots d'une p6riode de fermeture du d6troit de Gibraltar la source d'eau n'6tait pas l'eau oc6anique nonnale, mais l'eau saumatrc de la lac-mer ponto-caspienne. I~p~TKoe co~ep~l~a~He

The freshwater ichthyofauna of Greece - an update based on a hydrographic basin survey

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Phylogenetics and biogeography of the Balkan ‘sand gobies’ (Teleostei: Gobiidae): vulnerable species in need of taxonomic revision

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Models for relative motion of crustal blocks within the Carpathian region, based on restorations of the outer Carpathian thrust sheets

“…Minimum dates for the strike-slip deformation from outcrops of associated basin sediments point to Miocene-Pliocene age extension. particularly from the mid-Miocene onwards [Boncev, 1986;Petrovic, i969;Zagorchev, 1970Zagorchev, , 1992Eremija, 1971;Sonnefeld, 1973;Grubfc, 1980;Dercourt at al., 1980;Bdldi, 1983]. In the models (Figure 12 1993].…”