Reply to: No evidence for a 10-m historical tectonic uplift at Mangalia, (Romanian Black Sea coast): Comment on Drăgușin et al. (2025) by Vespremeanu-Stroe et al.

Abstract This reply addresses the comment by Vespremeanu-Stroe et al. on our paper which offered broad evidence for the existence of high amplitude vertical displacements at Mangalia, Romania, during the 18th–19th centuries. The comment proposes an alternative storm/tsunami origin for the anomalously elevated marine deposits. We show that the comment relies on weak arguments and is built on unpublished data that cannot be properly evaluated. We systematically rebut these claims, demonstrating that the premise of regional tectonic stability is contradicted by documented seismic activity. The paleoecological interpretation, based on the unproven dominance of a single ostracod genus is unsound, and the proposed storm/overwash scenario is physically implausible. The historically sediment-deprived coast could not have supplied the necessary sand volume for such a deposit. Furthermore, the upwards-coarsening sequence, fine sedimentary structures, and shells found in anatomical connection are diagnostic of nearshore progradation, not high-energy overwash events. The alternative hypothesis also lacks support from historical or meteorological records. We conclude that the neotectonic model of subsidence, infilling, and subsequent uplift remains the most parsimonious explanation for the evidence we found.