When compared with recent published literature, including that resulting from DSDP Leg 13, the sedimentological investigations of Leg 42A, Site 374 and the circum-Ionian land sections yield a "dynamic model" for the Mediterranean "salinity crisis" during the late Miocene. The main features of this model are: 1) Shallow basins with water depths down to 500 meters. 2) An almost continuous supply of oceanic waters and consequently a "Mediterranean" sea level matching approximately the world ocean sea level. Probable (minor) changes in the world ocean sea level, inducing (perhaps major) changes of the Mediterranean Sea level, may have caused the observed cyclicity of sedimentation. 3) A differentiation of lithofacies within the Mediterranean region mainly dictated by water depth and subaerial exposure. The subaqueous sedimentation could have been influenced by systems of currents within the basins and by a fresh water supply (seasonal precipitations and rivers). Water depths immediately before and after the Messinian were relatively shallow. Basinal subsidence, which occurred from at least Messinian time, with marked activity during the Pliocene and Quaternary, was probably about 1 meter per thousand years.
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