f The signature of the Mediterranean Messinian Salinity Crisis in the Black Sea and Caspian basins: implications for hydrocarbon exploration

The Black Sea and Caspian basins are located in the area of the Eastern Paratethys. In the late Miocene, between about 6 and 5.3 Ma a major base level fall was described in both basins. The base-level fall and subsequent isolation from the world seas were interpreted by many as the result of the Messinian Salinity Crisis (MSC) well known in the Mediterranean region (e.g. Hsu and Giovanoli, 1979; Jones and Simmons, 1996). The Pliocene Productive Series of the South Caspian Basin has been described as a major lowstand wedge within an underfilled lacustrine basin (Abdullayev et al., 2010). This mega-lowstand wedge, relative to the preexisting Miocene and subsequent Pleistocene shelf margins, deposited in a time span of about 2.6 m.y, after the initial base-level drop of about 1.5 km magnitude. The overall thickness of the lacustrine sediments deposited during this time reaches 6 km containing several prominent reservoir intervals in the Azeri, Russian and Turkmen sectors of the Caspian Basin (e.g. Abdullayev, 2000; Torres, 2007). The various reservoir intervals developed in fluvial, deltaic and lacustrine facies associations (Reynolds et al., 1998). The MSC affected the various basin segments of the Caspian region differently, depending on the preexisting basin margin configuration and sediment entry points. Fallah et al. (2011) suggested that the broadly age-equivalent formations of the Lower Productive Series in the Iranian sector (e.g. Kalani et al., 2008) are underexplored as the best reservoir units such as deltaic and slope siliciclastics may lie in the poorly known deepwater area of the South Caspian.