Comment on “The timing and evolution of the post-glacial transgression across the Sea of Marmara shelf south of İstanbul” by Eriş et al., Marine Geology 243, 57–76

In their recent paper, Eriş and co-authors attempt to refute much of our work on deltaic sediments at the southern exit of the Bosphorus Strait, Turkey. First, their age model is completely inconsistent with the well constrained chronology of our cores MAR02-110 and MAR02-111. Their Calypso core MD-2750 must have seriously oversampled the Holocene section, giving an erroneous impression of true thicknesses and ties to seismic data, and therefore leading to an incorrect assessment of the timing of deltaic sedimentation. Second, they have ignored evaporative drawdown in the Marmara Sea from ∼ 14.7–11.3 ka. Lowering of the sea surface by evaporation is a better explanation for a lowstand shoreline at ∼− 83 m elevation than their proposal that the Dardanelles sill was this deep at the time of reconnection with the global ocean. Third, we contest their conclusion that the uppermost delta in this area was sourced from the Kurbağalıdere River. The sediment flux of this river is too little, it cannot account for the strong upward climb of the topset-to-foreset transition into a rapidly rising ocean, and Eriş et al. make no attempt to explain the absence of a precursor shelf-edge delta that would be mandatory if this river had the water and sediment discharge that they suggest.