Holocene and late-Pleistocene sedimentation in the Adriatic Sea

TLDR: A summary of sedimentological data on the Adriatic Sea (with the exception of the areas along the Jugoslavian and Albanian coasts) can be found in this article.

Abstract: The following paper is a summary of sedimentological data on the Adriatic Sea (with the exception of the areas along the Jugoslavian and Albanian coasts). Because it is difficult to summarize a summary, only a few of the main conclusions will be mentioned here. Geophysical investigations indicate that the top of the limestone series, underlying the clayey and sandy deposits of the Pliocene and the Quaternary in the Adriatic area has a very uneven topography. Its greatest depths (4–6 km) are found a) between Ravenna and Rimini, b) between San Benedetto and Pescara, and c) below the Albanian shelf. Recent sands are mainly limited to the littoral zone; pleistocene sand, originally supplied by rivers, covers the greater part of the deeper shelf. Between these zones a terrace-shaped pro-littoral mud belt is present, where the bulk of the recent terrigenous mud is deposited. The maximum rate of accumulation in this belt is probably about 4 1/2 mm per year. The remaining part of the recent mud is transported in the sea water as floccules of such small size that they remain suspended over the deeper zones of the shelf. Most of it is deposited in the basins of the Central Adriatic (maximum accumulation rate for the Holocene on the average circa 1/2 mm per year) and in the bathyal basin in the southeast. The deepest area of the latter basin is formed by an almost horizontal plain (circa 1218 m deep). The longest core from this plain (240 cm of Holocene and 400 cm of late Pleistocene) is composed for roughly 61% of turbidite material, 5% of volcanic ash (coarser than fine silt), 0,2% of organic carbonate remains (coarser than silt) and 34% of normal terrigenous mud. The ash falls were limited to the central and southeastern parts of the Adriatic.