Re: [tied] Black Sea

----- Original Message -----
From: "DEFAYES MICHEL" <mdesfaye@...>
To: <cybalist@egroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2000 6:58 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Black Sea


The Black Sea marine species are basically those of the
Mediterranean complex; the fauna is not as rich as in in the
Med because the deep waters of the Black Sea (below 150 m)
are deoxydated, poisoned with hydrogen sulphide, and so free
of any non-bacterial forms of life. This is supposed to be
the consequence of low-salinity surface waters (diluted by
the great rivers of the Euxine basin) coating over the
higher-density Mediterranean influx and cutting it off from
oxygen circulation. Shells of freshwater mollusks have
already been found in the Black Sea bottom deposits, which
confirms the freshwater lake theory. BTW, fish can evolve
and speciate much more quickly than you suggest; a famous
example is the cichlid ichthyofauna of the African great
lakes (Malawi, Victoria and Tanganyika). New (and
morphologically very distinct) species took only a few
thousand years to fully evolve there.

Piotr


> It would be interesting to know if organisms, especially
fish; in the Black
> Sea are identical with those of the Mediterranean. If they
are different,
> then the Black Sea could not have been a fresh water lake:
new species of
> fish could not possibly have evolved in just 7500 years.
It takes hundreds
> of thousand or millions of years for vertebrates to evolve
as new species.
> This of course has little to do with Indo-European.
> Michel