Palaeoecology of Upper Pleistocene-Holocene bryozoan and foraminiferal assemblages from Kusdili (Kadikoy, Istanbul, Turkey)

Abstract

Bryozoan and foraminiferal assemblages from a core drilled in the Kusdili (Kadikoy, Istanbul) Upper Pleistocene-Holocene sequence were studied. Assemblages are absent from the very basal and top parts but they are well represented all along the middle part of the sequence. All the species found presently live in the Mediterranean. In the area sedimentation seemingly started about 13 000 years ago in very shallow near-shore environments with the deposition of pebbly sediments rapidly evolving to mud. Near the base, the presence of erosional surface allows to recognize three successive sedimentary cycles. Bryozoan and foraminiferal assemblages found in the middle part of the sequence testify to a shallow water, estuarine or lagoonal paleo-environment, in which effects of low salinity waters, more obvious toward the top, could be related to the reestablishment of a connection between the Marmara Sea and the Black Sea through the Bosphorus, about 7000 years BP. (C) 2002 Editions scientifiques et medicales Elsevier SAS. All rights reserved.