The Paratethys sea, Paratethys ocean, Paratethys realm or just Paratethys was a large shallow
inland sea that stretched from the region north of the
Alps
The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, Sw ...
over
Central Europe
Central Europe is an area of Europe between Western Europe and Eastern Europe, based on a common historical, social and cultural identity. The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) between Catholicism and Protestantism significantly shaped the a ...
to the
Aral Sea in
Central Asia
Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes the fo ...
.
Paratethys was peculiar due to its paleogeography: it consisted of a series of deep basins, formed during the
Oxfordian stage of the
Late Jurassic as an extension of the rift that formed the Central
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...
. These basins were connected with each other and the global ocean by narrow and shallow seaways that often limited water exchange and caused widespread long-term anoxia.
Paratethys was at times reconnected with the
Tethys or its successors (the
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on ...
or the
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by ...
) during the
Oligocene
The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the epoch are well identified but t ...
and the early and middle
Miocene
The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recen ...
times, but at the onset of the late
Miocene
The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recen ...
epoch, the tectonically trapped sea turned into a megalake from the eastern Alps to what is now
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...
.
From the
Pliocene
The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58[Black Sea
The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Rom ...](_blank)
,
Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central A ...
,
Aral Sea,
Lake Urmia,
Namak Lake and others are remnants of the Paratethys Sea.
Paratethys formed about 34
Ma (million years ago) at the beginning of the
Oligocene
The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the epoch are well identified but t ...
epoch, when the northern region of the
Tethys Ocean (Peri-Tethys) was separated from the Mediterranean region of the Tethys realm due to the
formation of the Alps,
Carpathians
The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians () are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe. Roughly long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Urals at and the Scandinavian Mountains at . The range stretche ...
,
Dinarides,
Taurus and
Elburz mountains.
During the
Jurassic
The Jurassic ( ) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of ...
and
Cretaceous
The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of ...
periods, this part of Eurasia was covered by shallow seas that formed the northern margins of the Tethys Ocean. However, because Anatolia, the southern boundary of the
Paleo-Tethys
The Paleo-Tethys or Palaeo-Tethys Ocean was an ocean located along the northern margin of the paleocontinent Gondwana that started to open during the Middle Cambrian, grew throughout the Paleozoic, and finally closed during the Late Triassic; exi ...
, is a part of the original Cimmerian continent, the last remnant of Paleo-Tethys Ocean might be oceanic crust under the Black Sea. The
Tethys Ocean formed between
Laurasia (Eurasia and North America) and
Gondwana
Gondwana () was a large landmass, often referred to as a supercontinent, that formed during the late Neoproterozoic (about 550 million years ago) and began to break up during the Jurassic period (about 180 million years ago). The final sta ...
(Africa, India, Antarctica, Australia, and South America) when the
supercontinent Pangea broke up during the
Triassic
The Triassic ( ) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.6 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.36 Mya. The Triassic is the first and shortest per ...
(200 million years ago).
Name and research
The name Paratethys was first used by
Vladimir Laskarev in 1924. Laskarev's definition included only
fossil
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...
s and
sedimentary strata from the sea of the
Neogene system
A system is a group of interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its environment, is described by its boundaries, structure and purpose and express ...
. This definition was later adjusted also to include the Oligocene
series. The existence of a separate water body in these periods was deduced from the fossil fauna, including mollusks, fish and
ostracods
Ostracods, or ostracodes, are a class of the Crustacea (class Ostracoda), sometimes known as seed shrimp. Some 70,000 species (only 13,000 of which are extant) have been identified, grouped into several orders. They are small crustaceans, typica ...
. In periods in which the Paratethys or parts of it were separated from each other or from other oceans, a separate fauna developed which is found in sedimentary deposits. In this way, the
paleogeographical development of the Paratethys can be studied.
Laskerev's description of the Paratethys was anticipated much earlier by Sir Roderick Murchison in chapter 13 of his 1845 book.
One of the key characteristics of the Paratethys realm, that is differentiating it from the
Tethys Ocean, is the widespread development of
endemic faunas, adapted to fresh and brackish waters like those that still exist in recent waters of the Caspian Sea. This distinctive fauna in which univalves of freshwater origin such as ''Limnex'' and ''Neritinex'' are associated with forms of Cardiacae and Mytili, common to partially saline or brackish waters, makes the geologic records from Paratethys particularly difficult to correlate with those from other oceans or seas because their faunas evolved separately at times.
Stratigraphers of the Paratethys, therefore, have their own sets of
stratigraphic stages which are still used as alternatives for the official
geologic timescale
The geologic time scale, or geological time scale, (GTS) is a representation of time based on the rock record of Earth. It is a system of chronological dating that uses chronostratigraphy (the process of relating strata to time) and geochr ...
of the
ICS.
Palaeogeographic Evolution
The Paratethys spread over a large area in Central Europe and western Asia. In the west it included in some stages the
Molasse basin north of the
Alps
The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, Sw ...
; the
Vienna Basin, the
Outer Carpathian Basin, the
Pannonian Basin
The Pannonian Basin, or Carpathian Basin, is a large basin situated in south-east Central Europe. The geomorphological term Pannonian Plain is more widely used for roughly the same region though with a somewhat different sense, with only th ...
, and further east to the basin of the current
Black Sea
The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Rom ...
and the
Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central A ...
until the current position of the
Aral Sea.
Anoxic Giant
The boundary between the
Eocene
The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''ēṓs'', ...
and Oligocene epochs was characterized by a big drop of the global (
eustatic) sea level and sudden steep cooling of global climates. At the same time the
Alpine orogeny, a
tectonic phase by which the Alps,
Carpathians
The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians () are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe. Roughly long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Urals at and the Scandinavian Mountains at . The range stretche ...
,
Dinarides,
Taurus,
Elburz and many other
mountain chain
A mountain chain is a row of high mountain summits, a linear sequence of interconnected or related mountains,Whittow, John (1984). ''Dictionary of Physical Geography''. London: Penguin, p 87. . or a contiguous ridge of mountains within a larger ...
s along the southern rim of Eurasia were formed. The combination of a drop in sea level and tectonic uplift resulted in the partial disconnection of the
Tethys and Paratethys domains. Due to poor connectivity with the global ocean, the Paratethys realm became stratified and turned into a giant
anoxic sea.
The western and central Paratethys basins experienced intense tectonic activity and anoxia during the Oligocene and early Miocene and became filled with sediments. Local gypsum and salt evaporitic basins formed in the East Carpathian region during the early Miocene. The Eastern Paratethys basin, holding most of the water of Paratethys, remained
anoxic
The term anoxia means a total depletion in the level of oxygen, an extreme form of hypoxia or "low oxygen". The terms anoxia and hypoxia are used in various contexts:
* Anoxic waters, sea water, fresh water or groundwater that are depleted of diss ...
for almost 20 million years (35-15 Ma), and during this time Paratethys acted as an enormous
carbon sink trapping organic matter in its sediments. The Paratethys anoxia was "shut down" during the middle Miocene, some 15 million years ago, when a widespread
marine transgression
A marine transgression is a geologic event during which sea level rises relative to the land and the shoreline moves toward higher ground, which results in flooding. Transgressions can be caused by the land sinking or by the ocean basins filling ...
, known as the Badeninan Flooding, improved connections with the global ocean and triggered the ventilation of the deep waters of Paratethys.
Short-lived open seas
After the Badenian Flooding, in the middle
Miocene
The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recen ...
, Paratethys was characterized by open-marine environments. Brackish and lacustrine basins turned into ventilated seas. Rich marine fauna containing
sharks (e.g.,
megalodon
Megalodon (''Otodus megalodon''), meaning "big tooth", is an extinct species of mackerel shark that lived approximately 23 to 3.6 million years ago (Mya), from the Early Miocene to the Pliocene epochs. It was formerly thought to be a memb ...
),
coral
Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and se ...
s,
marine mammal
Marine mammals are aquatic mammals that rely on the ocean and other marine ecosystems for their existence. They include animals such as seals, whales, manatees, sea otters and polar bears. They are an informal group, unified only by their ...
s,
foraminifera
Foraminifera (; Latin for "hole bearers"; informally called "forams") are single-celled organisms, members of a phylum or class of amoeboid protists characterized by streaming granular ectoplasm for catching food and other uses; and commonly ...
and
nanoplankton spread throughout Paratethys from the neighbouring Mediterranean region, probably via the Trans-Tethyan Corridor, an ancient sea-strait located in modern Slovenia.
Salt Giants
The open marine environments of Paratethys were short-lived, and halfway through the middle Miocene, progressive uplift of the central European mountain ranges and a eustatic drop isolated Paratethys from the global ocean triggering a salinity crisis in Central Paratethys.
The "
Badenian Salinity Crisis"
spanned between 13.8-13.4 Ma
Thick evaporitic beds (salt and gypsum) formed in the
Outer Carpathians,
Transylvanian and
Pannonian basins.
Salt mines extract this middle Miocene salt in Transylvania:
Turda,
Ocna Mures,
Ocna Sibiului and
Praid, in the Eastern and Carpathians:
Wieliczka,
Bochnia,
Cacica
Cacica ( pl, Kaczyka, german: Kaczika) is a commune located in Suceava County, in the historical region of Bukovina, northeastern Romania. The commune is located in the central part of the county, from the town of Gura Humorului, from the city ...
,
Slanic Prahova and the Southern Carpathians:
Ocnele Mari
Ocnele Mari is a town located in Vâlcea County, Oltenia, Romania. The town administers eight villages: Buda, Cosota, Făcăi, Gura Suhașului, Lunca, Ocnița, Slătioarele, and Țeica.
The town is situated in the central part of the county, at ...
, but evaporites are also present in areas west of the Carpathians
Maramureș, eastern
Slovakia
Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the ...
, (Solivar mine near
Prešov) and to a lesser extent in the Pannonian depresion in central
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Cr ...
.
Megalake
Some 12 million years ago, slightly before the onset of the
late Miocene, the ancient sea transformed into a megalake that covered more than 2.8 million square kilometers, from the eastern Alps to what is now
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country located mainly in Central Asia and partly in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the north and west, China to the east, Kyrgyzstan to the southeast, Uzbeki ...
, and characterized by salinities generally ranging between 12–14%. During its 5-million-year lifetime, the megalake was home to many species found nowhere else, including mollusks and ostracods as well as miniature versions of whales, dolphins, and seals.
After Paratethys
When parts of the Mediterranean fell dry during the
Messinian salinity crisis (about 6 million years ago) there were phases when Paratethys water flowed into the deep Mediterranean basins. During the
Pliocene
The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58[Pannonian Sea
The Pannonian Sea was a shallow ancient lake, where the Pannonian Basin in Central Europe is now. The Pannonian Sea existed from about 10 Ma (million years ago) until 1 Ma, during the Miocene and Pliocene epochs, when marine sediments were depo ...](_blank)
, a
brackish
Brackish water, sometimes termed brack water, is water occurring in a natural environment that has more salinity than freshwater, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing seawater (salt water) and fresh water together, as in estua ...
sea in the
Pannonian Basin
The Pannonian Basin, or Carpathian Basin, is a large basin situated in south-east Central Europe. The geomorphological term Pannonian Plain is more widely used for roughly the same region though with a somewhat different sense, with only th ...
. Many of these would disappear before the start of the
Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...
. At present, only the Black Sea, Caspian Sea, and the Aral Sea remain of what was once a vast inland sea.
See also
*
*
*
*
References
Further reading
*
External links
*
*{{Cite web , url=http://www.unil.ch/igp/page77388.html , title=Reconstructions paléotectoniques globales , publisher=
University of Lausanne
The University of Lausanne (UNIL; french: links=no, Université de Lausanne) in Lausanne, Switzerland was founded in 1537 as a school of Protestant theology, before being made a university in 1890. The university is the second oldest in Switzer ...
, first=Gérard , last=Stampfli , url-status=dead , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120108021131/http://www.unil.ch/igp/page77388.html , archive-date=2012-01-08
Historical oceans
Oligocene Europe
Miocene Europe
Pliocene Europe
History of the Mediterranean
Seas of the Mediterranean Sea