People at Fort Hoofddijk

Iuliana Vasiliev
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NWO VENI laureate
 Dr. I. Vasiliev
Paleomagnetic Laboratory
Fort Hoofddijk
NOW home page
Department of Earth Sciences
Utrecht University
Budapestlaan 17, 3584 CD Utrecht 
The Netherlands 

Phone +31 30 253 1361
E-mail vasiliev@geo.uu.nl

Research
Publications

My PhD thesis


Research of Iuliana Vasiliev

The Paratethys - Mediterranean hydrological budget during the Messinian Salinity Crisis
The Paratethys, an ancient ocean extending from Austria to Iran, has been an essential
palaeogeographic feature that significantly influenced the hydrological cycle, climate and
ecosystem of the Eurasian continental interior since the Oligocene (~35 Ma). The ocean
gradually transformed into an inland sea and finally into a giant lake as a consequence of
ongoing continental collision that shaped the Alpine-Himalayan orogenic belt. Close to
the final stages of its existence, during Miocene-Pliocene times, the Paratethys played a
major role in the Mediterranean water budget. 

At the end of the Messinian (5.96-5.33 Ma), the Mediterranean experienced one of the most dramatic episodes of past oceanic change: the Messinian Salinity Crisis. Kilometres thick salt units were deposited in a deep-desiccated Mediterranean basin, semi-isolated from the open ocean. Timing and nature of water exchange between Paratethys and Mediterranean is a vital, but poorly understood and highly controversial component of the Messinian Salinity Crisis. 
One scenario assumes that the Paratethys spilled into the Mediterranean just before the Pliocene flooding while another argues for a major sea (lake) level drop. 

The purpose is to reconstruct the hydrological budget of the Paratethys during this critical time interval. To this end, I will use a novel multi-proxy approach on well-dated sedimentary successions to assess the environmental changes in the Paratethys and their effects on regional climate and hydrography. Organic and inorganic geochemical proxies will be combined to reconstruct salinity and temperature profiles, and to determine the hydrological flux between the restricted Paratethys and the Mediterranean. 
This will provide insight into the influence of large inland water bodies on local climate as well as constraints on coupled palaeocirculation and palaeoclimatic models and quantitative analyses of palaeosalinity changes during the Messinian.
. 
Fieldwork in the Lobatan section, Azerbaijan

publications Publications of Iuliana Vasiliev
2011
  • Filipescu, S., Wanek, F., Miclea, A., de Leeuw, A. and Vasiliev, I. (2011). Micropaleontological response to the changing environment across the Sarmatian Pannonian boundary in the Transylvanian Basin (Oarba de Mures section, Romania). Geologica Carpathica, 62, 91-102. 
  • Vasiliev I., Iosifidi A.G., Khramov A.N., Krijgsman W., Kuiper, K.F., Langereis C.G., Popov V.V., Stoica M., Tomsha V.A. and Yudin S.V. (2011). Magnetostratigraphy and radiometric dating of upper Miocene - lower Pliocene sedimentary successions of the Black Sea Basin (Taman Peninsula, Russia), Palaeogeogr. Palaeoclimatol. Palaeoecol., in press   
2010
  • Joannin, S., Cornée, J.J., Münch, Ph., Fornari, M., Vasiliev, I., Krijgsman, W., Nahapetyan, S., Gabryelian, Y., Ollivier, V., Roiron, P., Chataîgnier, Ch. (2010). Early Pleistocene climatic cycles in continental deposits of the Lesser Caucasus of Armenia inferred from palynology, magnetostratigraphy, and 40Ar/39Ar dating, Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 291, 149-158.    
  • Krijgsman, W., Stoica, M., Vasiliev, I. and Popov, V.V. (2010). Rise and fall of the Paratethys Sea during the Messinian Salinity Crisis, Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 290, 183-191. 
  • Vasiliev, I., Reichart, G.J., Davies, G., Krijgsman, W., Stoica, M. (2010). Strontium isotope ratios of the Eastern Paratethys during the Mio-Pliocene transition; Implications for interbasinal connectivity, Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 292, 123-131. 
  • Vasiliev, I., de Leeuw, A., Filipescu, S., Krijgsman, W., Kuiper, K., Stoica, M., Briceag, A. (2010). The age of the Sarmatian-Pannonian transition in the Transylvanian Basin (Central Paratethys), Palaeogeogr. Palaeoclimatol. Palaeoecol., 297, 54-69. 
2009
  • Vasiliev, I., Matenco, L. and Krijgsman, W. (2009). The syn- and post-collisional evolution of the Romanian Carpathian foredeep: New constraints from anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility and paleostress analysis, Tectonophysics, 407, 457-465.   
2008
  • Vasiliev, I., Franke, C., Meeldijk, J.D.,Dekkers, M.J., Langereis, C.G. and Krijgsman, W. (2008). Putative greigite magnetofossils from the Pliocene epoch, Nature Geoscience, 1(11), 782-786. 
2007
  • Panaiotu, C.E., Vasiliev, I., Panaiotu, C.G., Krijgsman, W. and Langereis, C.G. (2007). Provenance analysis as a key to orogenic exhumation: a case study from the East Carpathians (Romania), Terra Nova, 19, 120-126 (doi: 10.1111/j.1365-3121.2006.00726.x) 
  • Stoica, M., Lazar, I., Vasiliev, I. and Krijgsman, W. (2007). Mollusc assemblages of the Pontian and Dacian deposits from the Topolog-Arges area (southern Carpathian foredeep - Romania), Geobios, 40, 391-405. 
  • Vasiliev, I., Bakrac, K., Kovacic, M., Abdul Aziz, H. and Krijgsman, W. (2008). Palaeomagnetic results from the Sarmatian/Pannonian Boundary in North-Eastern Croatia (Vranovic Section, Nasice Quarry), Geologica Croatica, 60(2), 151-163. 
  • Vasiliev, I., Dekkers, M.J., Krijgsman, W., Franke, C., Langereis, C.G. and Mullender, T.A.T. (2007). Early diagenetic greigite as a recorder of the palaeomagnetic signal in Miocene–Pliocene sedimentary rocks of the Carpathian foredeep (Romania),  Geophys. J. Int., 171, 613-629 
2006
  • Cornée, J.J., Münch, P.,  Quillévéré, F., Moissette, P., Vasiliev, I., Krijgsman, W., Verati, C.  and Lécuyer, C. (2006). Timing of Late Pliocene to Middle Pleistocene tectonic events in Rhodes (Greece) inferred from magneto- biostratigraphy and 40Ar/39Ar dating of a volcaniclastic layer, Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 250, 281-291. 
  • Vasiliev, I. (2006). A new chronology for the Dacian Basin (Romania). Consequences for the kinematic and paleoenvironmental evolution of the Paratethys region. Geologica Ultraiectina, 267, 193 pp.  
2005
  • Dupont-Nivet, G., Vasiliev, I., Langereis, C.G., Krijgsman, W. and Panaiotu, C. (2005). Neogene tectonic evolution of the southern and eastern Carpathians constrained by paleomagnetism, Earth Planet. Sci. Lett., 236, 374–387  
  • Vasiliev, I., Krijgsman, W., Stoica, M. Cor G. Langereis (2005). Mio-Pliocene magnetostratigraphy in the southern Carpathian foredeep and Mediterranean – Paratethys correlations, Terra Nova, 17, 376–384   
2004
  • Vasiliev, I., Krijgsman, W., Langereis, C.G., Panaiotu, C.E., Matenco, L. and Bertotti, G. (2004). Towards an astrochronological framework for the eastern Paratethys Mio-Pliocene sedimentary sequences of the Focsani basin (Romania), Earth Planet. Sci. Lett, 227, 231-247 
2003
  • Cloetingh, S.,Horváth, F., Dinu, C., Stephenson, R.A., Bertotti, G., Bada, G., Garcia-Castellanos, D. and the TECTOP Working Group (2003). Probing Tectonic Topography in the Aftermath of Continental Convergence in Central Europe, EOS, Trans. AGU, 84(10),89-96.