History of the geological development of the Ukrainian sector of the Black Sea from the middle Early Cretaceous to the beginning of the Late Miocene

Abstract

Regional seismic investigations have made it possible to obtain new knowledge on the geological history of the Ukrainian sector of the Black Sea during rifting from Albian to Cenomanian, post-rift subsidence (Turonian¾Maastrichtian and Paleocene¾Middle Eocene), tectonic compression at the end of the middle Eocene and post-rift subsidence interrupted by a series of short-lived, compressional events (late Eocene ¾ the beginning of the Early Miocene). Rifting occurred simultaneously in the entire area of study and formed three long rift basins, each of which consisted of a system of (half)grabens, separated from each other and their margins by faults with amplitudes of up to3 km. The intensity of Cretaceous rifting was significantly less than would be required to produce continental lithosphere break-up and oceanic crust formation, or through-going «oceanisation» of continental lithosphere. Sedimentation during the pre-Late Eocene post-rift phase took place in relatively shallow marine conditions. Eocene compression caused a strong deformation of the sedimentary cover, partial and complete inversion of rift faults and the formation of three largely separate sea basins, between which a large landmass arose. The primary area of deposition of sedimentary sequences was significantly reduced due to strong deformations caused by compressional phases in the Late Miocene. That which is now the deep Black Sea was a relatively shallow basin until the beginning or even the end of the Pleistocene. Only thereafter did the water depth increase rapidly to more than 2 km. Research results indicate that modern tectonic reconstructions of the Western Black Sea and Eastern Black Sea basins, which are based on assumptions about the formation of the (sub)oceanic crust in these basins and/or different times of their formation, look unreliable. It also follows that any view of back-arc basins as small oceanic basins is not universally applicable.