Late CretaceousEocene Marginal Seas
in the Black SeaCaspian Region: Paleotectonic Reconstructions

V. G. Kaz’min and N. F. Tikhonova

Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Nakhimovskii pr. 36, Moscow, 117997 Russia

e-mail: vkazmin@geo.sio.rssi.ru

Received September 29, 2005

Abstract—A series of seven reconstructions is presented to illustrate the evolution of marginal seas in the
Black Sea–South Caspian segment of the margin of the Tethys Ocean from the Late Jurassic to the middle
Eocene. After Middle Jurassic inversion and until the Aptian Age, no marginal (backarc) basins were formed in
the region, while the Pontides–Rhodope margin developed in the passive regime. The retained relict of the Late
Triassic–Early Jurassic backarc basin includes the southeastern part of the Greater Caucasus, the northern part
of the South Caspian Basin, and the shallow-water Kopetdagh Basin. The basins of the southern slope of the
Greater Caucasus, Balkans (Nish–Trojan Trough), and Dobrogea developed as flexural foredeeps in front of the
Middle Jurassic fold systems. The next, Aptian–Turonian epoch of opening of marginal seas was related to the
origination of subduction zones at the Pontides–Rhodope margin and to the incipient consumption of the Vardar
Basin lithosphere with formation of the West Black Sea Basin and its western continuation in the Bulgarian
Srednogorie. The backarc rifting in the Greater Caucasus resulted in transformation of the foredeep into the
backarc basin. Two basins approximately 2000 km in total extent were separated by the bridge formed by the
Shatsky and Andrusov rises. The last, late Paleocene–middle Eocene epoch of the formation of backarc basins
was associated with the newly formed subduction zone south of the Menderes–Taurus Terrane that collided with
the active margin in the early Paleocene. The Greater Caucasus Basin widened and deepened, while to its south
the East Black Sea Basin, the grabens in the Kura Depression, and the Talysh Basin, all being separated by a
chain of uplifts, opened. The Paleogene South Caspian Basin opened in the course of the southward motion of
the Alborz volcanic arc at the late stage of closure of the Iranian inner seas.

DOI: 10.1134/S0016852106030022

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