Regional turbidites and turbiditic environments developed during Neogene and Quaternary in Croatia

The Croatian Neogene and Quaternary depositional sequences preserve a record of several different depositional environments with turbidite successions. These are turbiditic systems developed during the Late Miocene in the Croatian part of the Pannonian Basin System and during the Pliocene and Pleistocene in the northern Adriatic Sea. The shape, salinity and depths of depositional areas were significantly different in these two depressional areas, but both were fed mostly with Alpine detritus. Neogene turbidites with lacustrine pelitic sedimentation formed thick heterogeneous sequences of sandstones and marls (totalling several hundreds to some thousands of metres in thickness in different depressional parts) of Upper Miocene age in Northern Croatia. By contrast, Pliocene and especially Pleistocene turbidites of the northern Adriatic were deposited in a marine environment where the total thickness of sand and clay sequences can reach up to several thousand metres. In both cases, individual sandy or sandstone turbiditic sequences (events) can reach several tens of metres in thickness. These turbidite clastic sediments are important hydrocarbon reservoirs.