The opening of the Western Black Sea Basin: an overview

The geological understanding of the Black Sea Basin appears quite far from being reasonably resolved. During the last two decades many contrasting points of views were published regarding the kinematics, mechanism and timing of the opening of both the Western and Eastern Black Sea basins (Fig. 1). Whereas the academia mostly focused on the basin margins, the oil and gas industry produced lots of geological and geophysical data in the shelf and, just recently, in the deepwater part of the basin providing critical insights. The present work is an attempt to summarize the pros and contras of the various models suggested to date, in light of the deepwater reflection seismic and well data acquired in the last few years. The overview below is addressing three open-ended subjects related to the opening of the Western Black Sea: kinematics, timing and mechanism.