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Ancient map of the Pontocaspian region after Kircher (1678), who in his "Mundus Subterraneus" already envisaged that the Caspian Basin must have been connected to the open ocean to explain its relatively high salinity (> 10 ‰) today. The Caspian Sea is in fact an isolated long-lived lake since at least 2.6 Ma. Kircher considered a subterraneous channel to the Persian Gulf for the marine connection. The location of this marine connection is still enigmatic today.
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The Pontocaspian (Black Sea - Caspian Sea) region has a very dynamic history of basin development and biotic evolution. The region is the remnant of a once vast Paratethys Sea. It contains some of the best Eurasian geological records of tectonic, climatic and paleoenvironmental change. The Pliocene-Quaternary co-evolution of the Black Sea-Caspian S...
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... age estimates are constrained between 127-121 ka (Velichko, 2002). The Surozh highstand is dated at 62-47 ka (Arslanov et al., 1983) or 40-25. ...
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... Levantine, the pearly freshwater mussel genera Cuneopsidea, Rugunio, Ritia, Pristinunio became extinct, while the genus Bogatschevia appeared. Boreal species appeared for the first time and a transition from thermophilous to more cold-resitant communities oc- curred. The middle Levantine is well known from the Veselovka and Tizdar mammal sites ( Fig. 10: Taman Peninsula, Russia). The Veselovka fauna is dominated by Dreissena theodori kubanica and sculpted Union- idae species, such as Rugunio lenticularis in the lower part, and Avimactra species in the upper part. The highly ornamented unionid groups probably represent stable warm temperate to subtropical conditions, comparable to ...
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... upper part with Avimactra shells of the Akchagylian on Taman (Eberzin, 1940). The presence of Dreissena theodori kubanica, which went extinct at the end of the Kuyalnikian (Nevesskaya et al, 1997), determines the fauna as pre-Gurian. According to Kochegura and Zubakov (1978), the Gauss/Matuyama boundary (2.6 Ma) is present in Veselovka. ...
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... late Levantine faunas are characterized by the gradual dis- appearance of subtropical elements and increasing prominence of boreal species. The unionoid Pseudosturia appeared at this time. Bogatschevia species, representing subtropical conditions, declined. Key late Levantine sites are the Iskra and Maly Kut localities (Fig. 10) on the Taman Peninsula that yield fresh water faunas with a variety of pearly fresh water mussel species as well as some Pontocaspian species (Dreissena polymorpha, D. cf. eichwaldi, Cardiidae indet., Clessiniola sp.) indicating the presence of lowland Pontocaspian-fluvial habitats. The occurence of the bivalve Pseudosturia indicates ...
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... small mammal fauna in the Port-Katon 4 locality belongs to the later part of the Tiraspol faunal complex and correlates with the regional zone MQR4 ( Tesakov et al., 2007a). Didacna pallasi penetrated across the Manych Strait into the Black Sea in the early Middle Pleistocene and survived almost to the end of the Middle Pleistocene (Yanina, 2012a). The youngest Pleisto- cene fauna is correlated with the post Eemian part of the Late Pleisto- cene. ...
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... wide dispersals and their sensitivity for climatic and environmental change. A European biochronological zonation was elaborated by Mein (1999Mein ( , 1990Mein ( , 1975, who included characteristic taxa, typical associa- tions, first and last appearance datums of the genus rank taxa, and re- ference localities/fauna for his MN zonation scheme (Fig. 10). The MN scheme contains 17 units covering the timespan from Aquitanian to Gelasian (Mein, 1976;Steininger, 1999;Hilgen et al., 2012). Several extensions were proposed to cover the late Pliocene and Pleistocene, e.g. "MNQ zones" (Guérin, 1982;Agustí, 1986;Agustí et al., 1987;Nomade et al., 2014) that are relevant for the Pontocaspian ...
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... stages of Eastern Paratethys roughly corresponds to three "ages"/ "stages" including four MN zones of the European biochronological system: Villanyian (= early and middle Villafranchian; MN16, MN17, 3.5-1.8 Ma), Biharian (= late Villafranchian to middle Galerian; MQ1, 1.8 -0.6 Ma), and Toringian (late Galerian to Aurelian; MQ2, 0.6-Re- cent) (see Fig. 10) (Fejfar and Heinrich, 1981;Fejfar et al., 1998). Furthermore, several regional biochronological zonations exist. The classical zonation scheme is a system of Eastern European "faunal complexes" by Gromov (1948) based on large mammals, and essentially based on the evolutionary stages of mammuthoid elephants. The Pleistocene in the ...
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... zonation scheme is a system of Eastern European "faunal complexes" by Gromov (1948) based on large mammals, and essentially based on the evolutionary stages of mammuthoid elephants. The Pleistocene in the Gromov scheme is divided into six units, Khaprovian, Psekupsian, Tamanian, Tiraspolian, Khazarian, and Late Paleolithic or Mammoth complexes (Fig. 10). The parallel MQR/MNR regional bio- chronology of eastern Europe is based on concurrent ranges of small mammals, mostly on rapidly evolving arvicoline rodents with 14 units covering the Pleistocene ( Vangengeim et al., 2001;Tesakov, 2004;Tesakov et al., ...
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... as- semblage of this time includes Pliocrocuta perrieri, Elasmotherium, Cervalces (Libralces), Leptobos, large Canis, badgers Meles and large felid Homotherium crenatidens. The regional record includes Adjiderebos cantabilis (Alexeeva, 1977;Dubrovo and Burchak-Abramovich, 1986;Titov, 2008;Sotnikova and Titov, 2009;Kahlke et al., 2011 (Figs. 10, 11), Tsalka ...
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... and driving factors. Because the Pontocaspian re- gion is regarded as a highly important region for hominin migration, including the major sites of Dmanisi and Ubeidiya, together with im- portant late Pleistocene hominin sites, we will give a short summary of the most important hominin sites and their implications in and around this region (Fig. 12, Table 1). This might serve as a basis for future studies on the relationship of the Pontocaspian climate, the related extent of the lakes, and hominin migration. In order to understand the potential role of the Pontocaspian region for hominin evolution we extend our review to the wider ...
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... of early hominins is recorded in the Southern Caucasus at the site of Dmanisi, in Georgia, where Oldowan lithic tools have been described from bed A, associated with mammalian remains (Ferring et al., 2011). This level is placed in a normal geomagnetic interval, identified as Olduvai, following magne- tobiostratigraphic and radiometric criteria (Fig. 12). Above bed A, bed B of the Dmanisi section shows a reversed polarity and was Ar 40 /Ar 39 dated to ca. 1.77 Ma (Ferring et al., 2011). It is this bed B that contains the oldest hominin remains in Eurasia, represented by 5 skulls and associated 4 mandibles, as well as post-cranial skeletal elements be- longing to at least 3 individuals ...
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... represented by 5 skulls and associated 4 mandibles, as well as post-cranial skeletal elements be- longing to at least 3 individuals ( Vekua et al., 2002;Lordkipanidze et al., 2005Lordkipanidze et al., , 2007). The hominins from Dmanisi are referred to an early population of Homo erectus, bearing many archaic traits ( Lordkipanidze et al., 2013) (Fig. 11). The small mammal association is dominated by gerbils (Parameriones aff. obeidiensis) and hamsters (Cricetulus n. ...
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... example that highlights the Levant corridor as one pre- ferred path of hominin migration between Africa and Eurasia is located in Gesher Bernot Ya'akov in Israel (Fig. 12). It has been dated using the presence of the MBB at 780 ka (Goren-Inbar et al., 2000). Its Acheulian assemblage is dominated by cleavers and bifaces and shows strong af- finities to Africa (Bar-Yosef and Belmaker, 2011). It has been inter- preted as a climatically driven migration wave originating from Africa and ceasing in the Levant ...
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... is in many places characterised by extensive shale deposits. A transgression on the scale of the Akchagylian would have required that vast amounts of water entered the basin. There are two ways this could have happened: a climatically controlled switch to a more positive hydrological budget or connection with overspill from an adjacent waterbody (Fig. ...
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... are three potential directions of marine connection between the Caspian Sea and the global oceans (Fig. 13); from the south (Indian Ocean), from the west (via the Mediterranean and Black Sea) and from the north (Arctic Ocean). A connection between the Caspian Sea and the Indian Ocean has previously been considered as a possibility during the Pontian, either through the region of modern day Pakistan, Af- ghanistan and Turkmenistan, or through ...
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... levels and relative high sali- nities of the Akchagylian can be explained by a transgression through the Black Sea Basin. The final option would be a connection to the Arctic Ocean, either west of the Urals, from the Barents Sea and over the Russian Platform or east of the Urals from the Kara Sea via the area that is now occupied by the Aral Sea (Fig. 13). In common with the western connection, a northern source is consistent with the observed transgression, a number of faunal indicators and salinity increase (although we are not currently aware of any contemporary time-equivalent sections in the Arctic re- gion that could be used to test this hypothesis). Presence of fauna that are ...
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... Pontocaspian lineages appear to derive from central Paratethys and possibly Anatolian ancestors. With the onset of the Pannonian age (c. 11.6 Ma; ter Borgh et al. (2013)) in Hungary and adjacent territories, a continuous series of anomalohaline long-lived Fig. 13. Map showing potential Akchagylian transgression mechanisms and possible connection points with brief outline of the requirements for each and the observed phenomena each would be able to explain. The main mechanisms discussed are climate driven base level rise and connection with an adjacent basin. Three potential adjacent water ...
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... the Caspian Sea Basin, the Akchagylian-Apsheronian boundary forms the base of the Pontocaspian interval (Fig. 14). The Akchagylian was dominated by an excessive radiation of mactrid and cardiid bi- valves, the latter being unrelated to modern Pontocaspian genera (Danukalova, 1996). These were entirely replaced by Apsheronian faunas dominated by modern Pontocaspian bivalve genera such as Di- dacna, Monodacna, Adacna and Hypanis (Kolesnikov, 1940). ...
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... bivalve and gastropod radiations occurred in the Caspian and Black Sea basins in the past 3 million years resulting in faunas rich in endemic species (Fig. 14). Turnover rates in several groups have been excessively high. For example, the Middle-Late Pleistocene contains at least seven well recognizable cardiid faunas in both the Black Sea Basin and Caspian Basin as a result of high origination and evolution rates. The gastropod evolution is less well-constrained due to a lack of com- ...
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... Black Sea, the Caspian Sea and the Open Ocean between 3 Ma to 700 ka is limited but subject of ongoing studies. There are no oxygen isotopic records and very few strontium isotopic data available for this period. Van Baak (2015) conducted strontium measurements for the Pliocene- Pleistocene transitional samples (3.2 -2 Ma) in the Caspian Basin (Fig. 15). There are no data from the Black Sea Basin during this period. Van Baak (2015) suggested that the Caspian Basin was isolated until about 2.7 Ma and at least locally dominated by rivers with low 87 Sr/ 86 Sr. At about 2.7 Ma, the Sr isotopic ratios rise substantially be- fore stabilizing at values that are consistent with Black Sea ...
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... et al., 2006;Nicholas et al., 2011;Piper and Calvert, 2011;Mudie et al., 2013;Constantinescu et al., 2015;Yanchilina et al., 2017). Currently, the Black Sea is connected to the Mediterranean Sea via the Marmara Sea and the strontium and oxygen isotopic values of the present day Black Sea are 0.709133 ± 0.000015 and -2.4 ‰, respectively ( Fig. 15a; Major et al., 2006). The strontium isotopic record for the last 30 ka shows that the Black Sea was an isolated basin during the last glacial maximum ( Major et al., 2006). This is consistent with the oxygen iso- topic record from the western Black Sea ( Bahr et al., 2006Bahr et al., , 2008Badertscher et al., 2011). Increased 87 Sr/ 86 ...
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... debris, organic and inorganic sedi- ment geochemistry, TEX 86 and U K' 37 derived water temperatures) of the Black Sea during the penultimate glacial and the Eemian interglacial (133.5 -122.5 ka) shows that the Black Sea experienced two meltwater pulses during the Termination II and was connected to the Mediterranean Sea during the Eemian ( Fig. 14b; Wegwerth et al., 2014). Increased 87 Sr/ 86 Sr during the second melt water pulse (131.5-130.5 ka) was interpreted as resulting from the increased influx from the Amu Darya river in the Caspian Basin and subsequent over- flow towards the Black Sea Basin during the deglaciation (Wegwerth et al., 2014). The authors suggest that the ...
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... only long-term (0-700 ka) oxygen isotopic record (Fig. 15c) from the Black Sea comes from well-dated speleothems collected from Sofular Cave, located 10 km from its southern coast in northern Turkey ( Badertscher et al., 2011)). The δ 18 O record of the Sofular Cave shows twelve episodes when the values surpassed δ 18 O of -8.5 ± 1‰. The authors correlated the evolution of the δ 18 O of the ...
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... Caspian Sea has experienced large variations in water level throughout its history (Fig. 16). In the 20 th century alone a 3m drop and subsequent rise in lake level occurred in times of decades ( Kroonenberg et al., 2007Kroonenberg et al., , 2008Chen et al., 2017). On millennial time scales re- gressions occurred of over 100 m deep. During most of the Pliocene- Quaternary history the Black Sea Basin was disconnected from the ...
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... exist of living populations. The Caspian biodiversity crisis has been described as ecocide by Dumont (1995). However, the true scale of the biodiversity crisis is uncertain as there is a paucity of recent data. Rapid sea level changes in the Caspian Sea (up to a few metres/decade during the later 20 th century) apparently are natural variation (Fig. ...
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... situation in Lake Aral is even more dramatic (Fig. 16): the lake itself is a precarious balance of inflowing Central Asian rivers and evaporation and in the Holocene Lake Aral experienced draughts (Filippov and Riedel, 2009). Yet the almost entire disappearance of the lake between 1957 and 2015 has been driven by extraction of river waters for agriculture. As a result, most of the ...
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Sono stati definiti i problemi per accorpare le cartografie geologiche di dettaglio alla scala 1:10.000 delle Regioni Emilia-Romagna, Marche, Toscane e Umbria mediante 4 aree pilota per uniformare la legenda geologica e per ridefinire le successioni sedimentarie e le unità tettoniche.
Problems have been defined to merge the detailed geological maps...
Citations
... The center of the genus' habitat has probably always been the current Southern Caspian, which existed in various forms all the time, having survived the epochs of many transgressions and regressions and salinity fluctuations. The expansion of the genus' range obviously occurred during transgressions, the most extensive of which were Akchagylian (3.6-2.6 million years ago) and Apsheronian (1.8-1.0 million years ago) [Krijgsman et al., 2018]. During these events there were faunistic contacts with the Ponto-Azov and Aral basins. ...
A partial revision of the genus Cercopagis Sars, 1897 was carried out with a redescription of the type species of the genus C. socialis (Grimm, 1877) and the species C. pengoi (Ostroumov, 1892). The nearby related genus Apagis Sars, 1897 was abolished, since its individuals represent only a temporary stage of the life cycle — females of the first generation hatched from resting eggs. Other species, C. micronyx Sars, 1897, C. longiventris Mordukhai-Boltovskoi, 1962, C. spinicaudata Mordukhai-Boltovskoi, 1962, as well as representatives of the “Apagis” forms are described briefly, since only little materials were available for them. There was no material available for the other three species of the genus Cercopagis. The partial nature of the revision is due to the fact that the author did not have sufficient material at his disposal, in particular, because the previously extensive collections of zooplankton from the reservoirs of the Ponto-Caspian-Aral basin have not been preserved. The representatives of the genus Cercopagis are discussed in the aspects of comparative morphology, taxonomy, peculiarities of sexual reproduction, geographical distribution, species richness, and origin. It is assumed that in recent decades, the species richness of the genus had undergone significant degradation due to large-scale changes in the aquatic ecosystems of the basin, in particular, in connection with the introduction of numerous alien species into the Caspian Sea.
How to cite this paper: Korovchinsky N.M. 2024. Partial revision of the genus Cercopagis Sars, 1897 (Crustacea: Cladocera: Onychopoda), with the redescription of two species and comments on morphology, taxonomy, reproduction, species richness, zoogeography, and origin
... Ma), becoming the eastern bay of this vast water body (see Textfig. 14). According to some researchers (Svitoch, 2009(Svitoch, , 2014Krijgsman et al., 2019), the Aral Sea Textfig. 24. ...
... inostranzevi were found in sediments of this time (Danukalova, 1996). During the Apsheronian transgression of the Caspian Sea (Early Pleistocene), the Aral Basin was apparently not filled by its waters (Krijgsman et al., 2019). Although there is an opposite point of view (Svitoch, 2009(Svitoch, , 2014. ...
Vinarski, M. V.; Kijashko, P. V.; Andreeva, S. I.; Sitnikova, T. Ya.; Yanina, T. A.: Atlas and catalogue of the living mollusks of the Aral and Caspian Seas. Vita Malacologica 23: 1-124. Leiden.
... The complete isolation of this sea-lake from the Azov-Black Sea basin is, according to the most maximum estimates, dates back to more than 35,000 − 42,000 years (Sorokin 2011; Krijgsman et al. 2019. It is impossible to exclude the absence of a two-way exchange during the last contact of these seas because the current was directed towards the Black Sea, and the Caspian waters were significantly desalinated (Krijgsman et al. 2019), and then the reasons for the deterioration of the Caspian littoral fauna could be sought in its more ancient history. ...
The marine littoral acarofauna is of interest both in relation to the history of seas and as biological indicators of water quality, but it remains poorly studied. For the first time, we characterize the molecular genetic variability of four widespread, common and abundant species of littoral mesostigmatic mites: Phorytocarpais kempersi, Parasitidae; Halolaelaps celticus and Halolaelaps orientalis, Halolaelapidae; and Thinoseius spinosus, Eviphididae. Based on the nucleotide sequence analysis of nuclear ribosomal repeats (ITS), we studied mite collections from the coasts of the Caspian, Azov, Black, Baltic, White, Barents, Norwegian, Bering, Okhotsk, and Japan seas. The molecular identification of the species studied, based on DNA barcoding using ITS sequences, appears to be clear. We obtained genetic evidence for the separation of Halolaelaps celticus and H. orientalis as two distinct species, based both on clustering their ITS genotypes (separated by 6 parsimony-informative substitutions) and the geographic distributions of their genotypes. The high genetic similarity of the western and eastern Palaearctic populations in both arctic-adapted species, Phorytocarpais kempersi and Thinoseius spinosus, is explicable in terms of their rather recent contact on the northern coast of Eurasia during the last interglacial or Holocene climatic optimum. The high genetic similarity of Halolaelaps orientalis, a relatively thermophilous species, from the Mediterranean region (the Azov, Black, and Caspian seas) with a sample from the very distant Sea of Japan suggests a recent connection between the European and Pacific populations via the Indian Ocean.
... Depositional environments represented by strata exposed in the KFTB vary from shallow marine to terrestrial, and the strata are predominantly siliciclastic, with general coarsening-upward trends observed throughout most stratigraphic sections (e.g., Agustí et al., 2009;Forte et al., , 2015aVan Baak et al., 2013;Lazarev et al., 2019Lazarev et al., , 2021). Strata exposed in the KFTB were deposited in environments influenced by both the development of the GC and KFTB (e.g., Forte et al., , 2015a and large-magnitude (~1000 m) base-level changes of the Caspian Sea during the late Cenozoic (e.g., Popov et al., 2006;van Baak et al., 2017;Krijgsman et al., 2019;Lazarev et al., 2021). Variations in Caspian Sea base level along with potentially related intermittent connections between the Black and Caspian Seas along the southern range front of the GC (e.g., Popov et al., 2010;van der Boon et al., 2018;van Hinsbergen et al., 2019) are commonly considered a first-order driver of stratigraphy within the Kura Basin. ...
... First, this approach helps insulate our results from the disruption of future revisions to the Caspian time scale and its correlation with the global time scale. Establishing the absolute ages of the boundaries between Caspian stages, their correspondence with stages in the Paratethyan realm more broadly, and their correlation to the global time scale have all proven extremely controversial, with significant Downloaded from http://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geosphere/article-pdf/doi/10.1130/GES02704.1/7029152/ges02704.pdf by Louisiana State University user revisions and/or shifts numerous times over the past several decades (see review in Krijgsman et al., 2019). Some of these changes were significant enough to shift a regional stage from one global stage to another. ...
... Some of these changes were significant enough to shift a regional stage from one global stage to another. While concentrated magneto-and biostratigraphic work has significantly clarified the temporal extents of individual Caspian and related Paratethyan stages, disagreements remain, likely because (1) specific stage-bounding transgressive or regressive surfaces may have formed at different times in different Paratethyan basins, and/or (2) the individual stage-bounding surfaces may be time-transgressive within individual basins and their subbasins (e.g., Vasiliev et al., 2011;Van Baak et al., 2013, 2019Forte et al., 2015a;Krijgsman et al., 2019;Lazarev et al., 2019Lazarev et al., , 2021. Because of the long-standing and ongoing problems with correlation of the regional stages to standard international geological epochs, nearly all prior international literature on the stratigraphy of this region has used regional stage names (e.g., Mamedov, 1973;Jones and Simmons, 1996;Vincent et al., 2010Vincent et al., , 2013Vasiliev et al., 2011Vasiliev et al., , 2022Van Baak et al., 2013, 2019van Baak et al., 2016van Baak et al., , 2017Richards et al., 2018;Krijgsman et al., 2019;Lazarev et al., 2019Lazarev et al., , 2021Palcu et al., 2019;Aghayeva et al., 2023). ...
The Greater Caucasus (GC) mountains are the locus of post-Pliocene shortening within the northcentral Arabia-Eurasia collision. Although recent low-temperature thermochronology constrains the timing of orogen formation, the evolution of major structures remains enigmatic—particularly regarding the internal kinematics within this young orogen and the associated Kura Fold-Thrust Belt (KFTB), which flanks its southeastern margin. Here we use a multiproxy provenance analysis to investigate the tectonic history of both the southeastern GC and KFTB by presenting new data from a suite of sandstone samples from the KFTB, including sandstone petrography, whole-rock geochemistry, and detrital zircon (DZ) U-Pb geochronology. To define source terranes for these sediments, we integrate additional new whole-rock geochemical analyses with published DZ results and geological mapping. Our analysis reveals an apparent discrepancy in up-section changes in provenance from the different methods. Sandstone petrography and geochemistry both indicate a systematic up-section evolution from a volcanic and/or volcaniclastic source, presently exposed as a thin strip along the southeastern GC, to what appears similar to an interior GC source. Contrastingly, DZ geochronology suggests less up-section change. We interpret this apparent discrepancy to reflect the onset of sediment recycling within the KFTB, with the exhumation, weathering, and erosion of early thrust sheets in the KFTB resulting in the selective weathering of unstable mineral species that define the volcaniclastic source but left DZ signatures unmodified. Using the timing of sediment recycling and changes in grain size together as proxies for structural initiation of the central KFTB implies that the thrust belt initiated nearly synchronously along strike at ~2.0–2.2 Ma.
... At the beginning of the Late Villafranchian (zone MNQ18), they lived in the south of Eastern Europe and in the Caucasus: A. verestchagini from Salcia (2.2-1.6 Ma) in Moldova (David, 1992) and from Taurida Cave (1.8-1.5 Ma) in Crimea (Vislobokova et al., 2019), A. insolitus from Dmanisi (1.85-1.77 Ma) in Georgia (Vekua et al., 2010;Krijgsman et al., 2019;Bartolini-Lucenti et al., 2022), and A. radulescui (=Rucervus radulescui) from Grăunceanu (MNQ18, 2.2-1.8 Ma) in Romania (Croitor, 2018b). ...
... Vulpes alopecoides has been reported from several Early Pleistocene sites across Europe, including Dafnero-1 in Greece [171], Dmanisi in Georgia [28,172], Fonelas-P1 in Spain [157], Kastritsi in Greece [171], La Puebla de Valverde in Spain [100], Makinia in Greece [171], Pirro Nord in Italy [30], Sesklon in Greece [171], St. Vallier in France [65], Upper Valdarno in Italy [34,150], Villarroya in Spain [173,174], and Volax in Greece [171]. In contrast, Vulpes praeglacialis has been found in later Early Pleistocene localities, such as Apollonia-1 in Greece [32], Atapuerca Trinchera Dolina 6 TD6 in Spain [127], Barranco Leon-5 in Spain [23], Cal Guardiola in Spain [23], Gombaszög/Gombasek in Slovakia [175], Caune de l'Arago in France [176], Deutsch Altenburg 2C in Austria [177], El Chaparral in Spain [23], Fuente Nueva 3 in Spain [23], L'Escale in France [178], Le Vallonnet in France [20], Püspökfurdö-Betfia 2 in Romania [179], Venta Micena in Spain [23], and Villany 3-8 in Hungary [180]. ...
The Vallparadís Section encompasses various geological layers that span a significant chronological range, extending from the latest Early Pleistocene to the early Middle Pleistocene, covering a timeframe from approximately 1.2 to 0.6 Ma. This period holds particular importance as it coincides with a significant climatic transition known as the Early-Middle Pleistocene Transition, a pivotal phase in Quaternary climatic history.
This transition, marked by the shift from a 41,000-year obliquity-driven climatic cycle to a 100,000- year precession-forced cyclicity, had profound effects on the Calabrian carnivorous mammal com- munities. Notably, the once diverse carnivore guild began to decline across Europe during this pe- riod, with their last documented occurrences coinciding with those found within the Vallparadís Section (e.g. Megantereon or Xenocyon). Concurrently, this period witnessed the initial dispersals of African carnivorans into the European landscape (e.g. steppe lions), marking a significant shift in the composition and dynamics of the region's carnivorous fauna.
... The habitat of the Caspian seal is restricted to the landlocked Caspian Sea, with no direct access to the World Ocean. The Caspian Sea is a remnant of the Paratethys, and is last thought to have shared an open connection the world's ocean 35 million years ago, although sporadic connections with the Arctic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea likely existed through Pleistocene glacial cycles (94,95). Caspian seals are estimated to have diverged from sister taxa around 1 to 2 million years ago (96). ...
Introduction
Viral diseases of pinnipeds cause substantial mortality and morbidity and can influence population demography. Viral metagenomic studies can therefore play an important role in pinniped health assessments and disease surveillance relevant to both individual species and in a “One Health” context.
Methods
This study used a metagenomic approach with high throughput sequencing to make the first assessment of viral diversity in Caspian seals (Pusa caspica), the only marine mammal species endemic to the Caspian Sea.
Results
Sequencing libraries from 35 seals sampled 2009–2020 were analysed, finding sequences from the viral families Circoviridae, Parvoviridae, Herpesviridae, Papillomaviridae, Picornaviridae, Caliciviridae, Cruciviridae, Anelloviridae, Smacoviridae, and Orthomyxoviridae, with additional detection of Adenoviridae via PCR. The similarity of viral contigs from Caspian seal to sequences recovered from other pinnipeds ranged from 63.74% (San Miguel sea lion calicivirus) to 78.79% (Seal anellovirus 4).
Discussion
Some findings represent novel viral species, but overall, the viral repertoire of Caspian seals is similar to available viromes from other pinnipeds. Among the sequences recovered were partial contigs for influenza B, representing only the second such molecular identification in marine mammals. This work provides a foundation for further studies of viral communities in Caspian seals, the diversity of viromes in pinnipeds more generally, and contributes data relevant for disease risk assessments in marine mammals.
... As such, under certain conditions, even relatively low escarpments can generate long-runout landslides. In the case of the western escarpment of the Ustyurt Plateau, landslides probably collapsed into the Caspian Sea during Late Quaternary transgressions 98 and were at least partially transported underwater, which increased their mobility 8 . ...
The largest terrestrial coalescent landslide areas of the Earth, spanning hundreds to thousands of square kilometres, occur along the fringes of relatively low-relief sedimentary and volcanic tablelands. However, difficulties in landslide recognition in these areas have led to underestimations of their frequency and likelihood. In this Review, we explore the global distribution, controls and dynamics of landslides occurring along tableland fringes. Landslide fringes are caused by the uninterrupted and extensive presence of weak sub-caprock lithologies below a more competent caprock. Topography, escarpment height and caprock thickness do not affect landslide size but can locally influence the type of displacement. Rotational landslides dominate most landslide fringes and will eventually lead to tableland consumption over million-year timescales. Some tableland rims can generate catastrophic long-runout rock avalanches or earthflows, which might in turn trigger tsunamis, river avulsion or outburst floods. Tablelands can also fail by slow (centimetre per year) landslide movements sufficient to cause damage to infrastructure. These hazards are increasing especially in high-latitude tablelands owing to cryosphere degradation, as observed in Western Greenland. A more detailed global inventory of landslide fringe activity is urgently needed to better quantify these potential hazards.
... During the analysis of the results, we took into account that the accumulation of boulder-pebble molasses can be due to two factors: increasing energy of water streams as a result of (i) the uplift of drainage divides and (ii) a strong decrease in erosion basis. Taking into account the well-studied dynamics of Ponto-Caspian transgressive-regressive cycles of the Neogene-Quaternary (Nevesskaya et al., 2004;Popov et al., 2010;Yanina, 2012;Svitoch, 2014;Krijgsman et al., 2019), we omitted the deposits which accumulated in epochs of significant drops of erosion basis from indicators of orogenesis. ...
... The larger fractions were treated during the field works and the smaller fractions were sorted in laboratory. The results of fauna studies were compared with current Cenozoic biostratigraphic scales of the Ponto-Caspian region (Krijgsman et al., 2019). The faunistic collections were analyzed in the laboratories of GIN RAS, PIN RAS, and SCC RAS by A.S. Tesakov, E.V. Syromyatnikova, V.V. Titov, and P.D. Frolov. ...
Molasses of foredeeps are important indicators of the newest orogenic uplifts, as well as the data source on climate and landscape changes. One of the fullest sections of Neogene–Quaternary deposits is studied in valleys of the Belaya, Pshekha, and Psekups Rivers at the junction of the Western and Northwestern Caucasus with Eastern Kuban and Western Kuban foredeeps. The formation of the deposits corresponds to the main evolution stages of the Great Caucasus orogen, as well as the foredeeps. Summary of extensive published and original tectonostratigraphic materials has shown that the lowland and then hilly relief in an axial zone of Western Caucasus existed since, at least, from the Middle Miocene. At the same time, the northern flank of the present-day orogen and the foredeeps were located at the sea level and were repeatedly flooded by the seas up to the Kuyalnikian (Piacenzian–Gelasian) time, and the Western Kuban Foredeep – even later. The main data on stratigraphy of the upper molasses and Pliocene–Quaternary tectonic movements of the region are based on facies analysis and bio- and magnetostratigraphic studies of the Upper Pliocene–Lower Pleistocene Belorechensk Formation. Its sedimentation started at the beginning of the Kuyalnikian as a result of an increase of the energy of mountain rivers due to the uplift of riverheads. It is stated that the minimum averaged rate of uplift of the Western Caucasus in the basin of the Belaya River is 0.8 mm/year over last 4 Ma with acceleration up to 1.7 mm/year from the beginning of the Calabrian. The Belorechensk Formation includes three subformations, which successively become coarser-clastic and correspond to the main stages of the accumulation of upper molasses in the Late Pliocene and Early Pleistocene during the intensification of uplifts and landscape-climate changes of Western Caucasus and Ciscaucasia.
... Miocene-Pliocene tectonic uplifts, glacio-eustatic sea level fluctuations, and sedimentation progressively filled the marginal sedimentary basins in the west and east, and the Paratethys Sea retreated drastically (Popov et al., 2004(Popov et al., , 2006. During the early Pliocene, around 3.6 million years ago, the Caspian Sea basin had the lowest sea-level ever recorded (Svitoch, 2016;Krijgsman et al., 2019). Significant areas of Transcaucasia, of the Turanian plate and in the fore-Kopet Dagh depression came up (Popov et al., 2006), and opened up a 'land bridge' as a possible gateway for plant migration Table 3 Synopsis of lineage features. ...
... Vast areas of southern Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Azerbaijan, and Georgia were flooded and shores extended to the southern Ural and the Volga-Kama basin in the north up to ca. 56 • N, to the Sea of Azov in the west, and eastwards to the Aral Sea and southern Turkmenistan up to the foothills of the Hindukush. The following Apsheronian transgression (dated to between 2.0 -1.0 Ma) is the second largest Caspian Sea transgression but sea shores extended only to ca. 51 • N, and in the east, the Aral Sea basin was not flooded, and waters penetrated only the most western parts of the Karakum in Turkmenistan (Popov et al., 2006;Svitoch, 2016;Krijgsman et al., 2019;Naidina andRichards, 2016, 2020;Pisareva et al., 2019;and references therein). ...
