Overview of the Bosphorus Depositional Fan from Data Sets Recovered on the Black Sea Shelf off the Strait of Istanbul

Since the preliminary mapping of the northern Bosphorus outlet of the Black Sea continental shelf by the 90’s NATO project, an important data set bringing morphological, seismic and sedimentological information is now available to describe there a shallow fan system consisting of a main channel and short distributary branches, levees, and sediment waves, correlative to a southern source flowing to the north. This paper brings complementary quantitative data from landscape at the eastern and western shelf area of the shallow fan system. It confirms that the Bosphorus outlet fan preserved on the shelf surface provides an important record of surface water flow. To deduce the history of the Marmara/Black Sea last connexion, it is fundamental to understand how surface water flow could have generated the observed morphology. To date, morphological studies propose only very short time estimates for the longevity of the necessary hydrological events responsible for this deposit.