Stratigraphic architecture of the Montenegro/N. Albania Continental Margin (Adriatic Sea—Central Mediterranean)

• Montenegro Continental Margin records the effect of 100 kyr sea level changes.
• Post-glacial mud wedge is confined into mid-shelf basins.
• Outer shelf subsidence rate, about 1.2 mm/yr during the last ~ 350 kyr

The Montenegro/Northern Albania Continental Margin (MACM), in the eastern Adriatic Sea, is a convergent margin at the Dinarides Chain front supplied by major fluvial systems, such as the Buna/Bojana and Drini Rivers. Analysis of high-resolution seismic reflection profiles and core samples, which included paleobiologic legacy of macrofossil assemblages and radiometric dating, shows that the post Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) deposits are confined into mid-shelf basins partially bounded toward the sea by tectonic highs, such as the Kotor and Bar ridges, while the outer shelf exposes lowstand deposits locally covered by a thin veneer of Holocene mud. Pre-LGM units consist of four depositional sequences bounded by erosional surfaces of regional extent related to sea level lowstands during Marine Isotopic Stages (MIS) 10, 8, 6 and 2. This pattern is observed close to the shelf-break, at water depths of 200–220 m, where a stack of sedimentary sequences records sea level changes at the scale of 100 kyr. Position and estimated ages of buried shorelines indicate that the outer shelf subsidence rate has been about 1.12 mm/yr during the last ~ 350 kyr, while a morphological analysis carried out along the LGM paleoshoreline suggests that the northern sector of the MACM has been uplifted of up to several tens of meters during the last ~ 20 kyr.

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