Environmental stress in the Danube delta front (Black Sea) identified from benthic foraminifera

Abstract

The Danube River forms a huge delta with surface area about 4,152 km² of which 3,446 km² are located in Romania and the rest in Ukraine. The river has numerous channels (branches) in the lower Danube plain, two of which - Sulina (169 km long) and St. George (109 km long) - are located in Romania, and the third one is the Kilia (or Chilia, 104 km long) in Ukraine. This paper represents continuation of our research using foraminifera for tracing environmental stress caused by river discharge. In addition to our data on the Sulina and St. George delta front, prodelta and outer shelf discussed in Yanko-Hombach et al. (2013, 2014, 2015), we present intermediate results of our study in the Kilia delta front sector. The main goal of the study is to discover a degree of environmental stress in bottom ecosystem caused by the river discharge using bathymetrical succession of benthic foraminifera as the main tool.