Field insights into sediment delivery to the northwest Black Sea

The NW Black Sea contains the basin’s largest clastic system, currently dominated by the Danube, and the recent successes of the Domino and Lira wells highlight this region’s large exploration potential. Our ongoing research in the area is tailored to provide better constraints on the composition of potential clastic reservoirs in both the Romanian and Ukrainian offshore. Both literature reviews and extensive field investigations provide input for a reconstruction of the palaeogeographic evolution of the circum-NW Black Sea. Special emphasis is placed on an understanding of the spatial, temporal and compositional evolution of the different sediment supply systems. This is of particular importance, because there was a complex interplay among systems feeding sediment into the NW Black Sea during the Late Miocene, Pliocene and Pleistocene. Key elements addressed are the timing of the arrival of the Danube to the NW Black Sea, and the significance of the Balta-Porat Delta of Moldova and Ukraine; a largely underappreciated, and frequently overlooked clastic system. Combined results from outcrop investigations and analysis of regional cross sections furthermore illustrate what the impact of Sarmatian, Meotian, Pontian (Messinian) and Dacian base-level falls were on the onshore part of the depositional systems of the Dacian Basin and the Moldovan and Ukrainian parts of the Scythian Platform. Our sediment system research strongly benefits from recent improvements in the bio- and chronostratigraphy of Paratethys that allow for much better regional and global correlations.