Article:
IN “The Messinian Salinity Crisis from mega-deposits to microbiology – A consensus report”, 2007. N° 33 in CIESM Workshop Monographs [F. Briand, Ed.], 168 p., CIESM Publisher, Monaco.
Authors:
Georges Clauzon, Jean-Pierre Suc, Speranta-Maria Popescu, Mihaela Carmen Melinte-Dobrinescu, Frédéric Quillévéré, Sophie Warny, Séverine Fauquette, Rolando Armijo, Bertrand Meyer, Jean-Loup Rubino, Gilles Lericolais, Hervé Gillet, M. Namik Cagatay, Gülsen Ucarkus, Gilles Escarguel, Gwénaël Jouannic, Florent Dalesme.
Abstract:
After an intense effort in chronology (magnetostratigraphy, biostratigraphy), the effects of the Messinian Salinity Crisis have been explored all around the Mediterranean Sea and its appendix, the eastern Paratethys. The respective influence of regional tectonics and global climate has been estimated, the role of the latter cannot be neglected. The Messinian Erosional surface cut everywhere the marginal evaporites and correlates to the halite in the central deep basins, an observation that led to the two-step scenarios of the crisis (Clauzon et al., 1996). The Lago Mare biofacies result from various paleogeographic conditions, reproduced several times: Mediterranean-Paratethys exchanges during the high sea-levels, dilution by river input at the end of the evaporitic phase. Henceforth, Lago Mare cannot have a chronostratigraphic value. This dense study results in a detailed chronology of the Messinian salinity Crisis and in the Paleogeographic reconstruction of the Region, showing that the crisis cannot be reduced to a simplistic scenario.