Giacomo Spadini
Faculty of Earth Sciences, Vrije Universiteit
Amsterdam, Netherlands
(currently at AGIP, San Donato Milanese, Italy.)

Andrew G. Robinson
JKX Oil & Gas plc
Guildford, United Kingdom

S.A.P.L. Cloetingh
Faculty of Earth Sciences, Vrije Universiteit
Amsterdam, Netherlands

We demonstrate the key role of prerift rheology on the kinematics of basin formation and subsidence history in the Western and Eastern Black Sea basins. Constraints on modeling results are provided by a large data set based on >50,000 km of multichannel seismic data, offshore and onshore wells, regional gravity and magnetic surveys, refraction seismic data, and field studies. The western and eastern parts of the Black Sea appear to be two distinct basins, characterized by different evolutionary paths determined by different prerift conditions. The model supports the presence of important differences in the thickness and in the thermal state of the lithosphere, which rifted to form the Western (middle Barremian) and the Eastern (middle Paleocene) Black Sea subbasins. A 200-km thick and an 80-km thick prerift lithosphere appears to have driven the deformation in the Western and in the Eastern Black Sea, respectively. Differences in the geometry and in the mechanical properties of the prerift lithosphere have a strong control on the depth of necking and, thus, on the basin morphology. The model sheds light on paleotectonic and paleogeographic reconstructions, duration of rifting events, location of subsiding areas, and erosional surfaces.