Temporal variations in sedimentation patterns: NW Aegean Sea

Cores are examined from the northern continental slope environment of the Sporadhes Basin, the western part of the North Aegean Sea Trough. Three distinct lithofacies have been identified, which correspond with similar environments identified elsewhere in the western and southeastern Mediterranean. These layers, turbiditic mud — hemipelagic mud ? calcareous ooze, represent late Quaternary climatic and eustatic sea level changes and tectonic activity.Based on benthic foraminiferal evidence from the eastern part of the North Aegean Sea Trough, it is suggested that contemporary sediment supply and physical oceanographic conditions in the area under investigation might be conducive to sapropel formation; also, that the depositional sequence in the cores represents a gradual recovery in the Mediterranean Sea, since its last stagnation and sapropel formation some 8000 years ago