Marine and environmental studies

Paleoceanography of the Black Sea reconstructs how this semi-enclosed basin shifted between freshwater lake and marine sea across the late glacial and Holocene periods, driven by fluctuating connections with the Mediterranean through the Bosphorus and with the Caspian Sea to the east. Sediment cores preserve layered records of these transitions — changes in salinity, biology, and water chemistry — that let researchers pin down when and how rapidly Mediterranean waters flooded northward as global sea levels rose after the last glacial maximum. Understanding that flood event, sometimes called the Holocene transgression, carries implications for reconstructing regional climate, early human coastal settlement, and the dynamics of isolated basins responding to sea-level forcing worldwide. Active research continues to debate the precise timing and magnitude of that marine incursion and to untangle how sediment transport, basin circulation, and connectivity among the Black, Marmara, and Caspian seas co-evolved through these dramatic environmental shifts.

Works

142,052

Total citations

729,867

Keywords

Black SeaHolocenepaleoceanographysea levelMediterraneanCaspian Sea