"Paratethys" by Laskarev, 1924: 100 years of history and current challenges

SGD lecture on April 10, 2024

Abstract

Vladimir D. Laskarev (1868-1954), was a prominent Russian and Serbian geologist and palaeontologist. He was the first to officially introduce the name "Paratethys" for the large epicontinental sea that stretched from the Alps and Central Europe to Inner Asia and presentday Kazakhstan. On April 10, 1924, Laskarev gave a lecture at the 209th Meeting of the Serbian Geological Society entitled "On Congerian strata and their significance for the tectonics of Belgrade". In the same year, the lecture under the title "Sur les équivalents du Sarmatien Supérieur en Serbie" was published in French within the Collection of Works dedicated to the 35th anniversary of the scientific activity of the world-famous karstologist Jovan Cvijić, otherwise his friend. Thus, the idea of the existence of an ancient Miocene Sea in Europe was officially born. In other words, it was the last step towards promoting the concept that Laskarev had been developing for almost thirty years. Namely, since the period when he was a young geologist in southern Russia (1896), and later during several years of professional travels in Western and Central Europe (1898-1900), the idea of the existence of a large European sea had been born in his head. Tectonic observations in the Miocene throughout the Alps, Central
Europe, and Southwestern Russia, as well as the lectures he listened to from E. Ziss, T. Fuchs, A. Karpinsky, N. Andrusov and other famous geologists of the time, significantly encouraged this idea. It was especially important that Laskarev examined in detail the most important collections of Neogene mollusks in museums throughout Europe and realized that there were significant similarities. All this further strengthened his idea of the existence of the Paratethys in Europe and southern Russia. However, during the first three decades after its official introduction, the term did not find widespread use. It was not until after World War II and the
establishment of the Regional Committee on Mediterranean Neogene Stratigraphy (RCMNS, 1958) and its first congress in Vienna (1959) that the term Paratethys came into practical use. Finally, after the formation of the Paratethys Working Group during the 4th Congress of the RCMNS (Bologna, 1967), the term was widely accepted. During the 1970s, the term is universally recognized through the International Geological Correlation Project (IGCP) No. 25 "Stratigraphic correlation Tethys - Paratethys Neogene " (led by Jan Senes). At the same time, a regional stratigraphic scale of the Central Paratethys was set up and the Andrusov horizons of
the Eastern Paratethys were elevated to the rank of regional stages. Since then, the term Paratethys has become one of the most widely used terms in geology, and that trend continues to this day. Compared to Laskarev's time, new scientific methods and an interdisciplinary/multidisciplinary approach have led to new scientific knowledge regarding the Paratethys and its evolution. The
stratigraphic range of the Paratethys has been extended to an even greater geological past (up to the late Eocene). Modern and improved techniques, high-resolution field sampling and fine processing with sophisticated laboratory equipment have resulted in an integrated stratigraphic and paleogeographic reconstruction of the former Paratethys. Hundreds of scientific papers, dozens of renowned books, and monographs on various geological aspects of the Paratethys have been written. International expert teams, and with them numerous geology students, are working on numerous research projects regarding the Paratethys. At the time of this lecture, dozens of new scientific papers on the Paratethys have just been published or are awaiting publication in journals around the world. It is certain that this trend will continue in the future.