The drastic climatic changes which characterise the cooling trend of the last few million years of Earth history led to variations in eustatic sea level that had tremendous impact on the geology and ecology of continental margins. Reconstructing a sea-level curve back in time is not an easy task. Observations of shoreline positions are always a local measurement of Relative Sea Level that needs to be corrected from the effect of tectonic and thermal subsidence, sediment loading, compaction and glacio-hydro isostasy. Extensive studies have been done for the last deglaciation and for the last 100,000 yr cycle. But very few studies deal with position of sea level during earlier cycles, simply because conditions are very rarely favourable for the preservation of such witnesses. The shelf of the Golfe du Lion (Western Mediterranean) reveals a unique record of shoreline paleopositions during glacial maxima of at least the last five circa 100 kyr glacial/interglacial cycles. In fact it is the entire glacial deltaic lobe of up to 50 m thick (from delta front or shoreface to prodelta) that has been preserved in place and which provides direct and independent constraints for relative sea-level minima. We measure a relative sea level of: − 112m, − 128, − 134, − 246 and − 262 m for MIS 2, 6, 8, 10 and 12 respectively. After corrections taking into account postdepositional movement of strata (subsidence), we find, that sea level dropped to a depth of − 102 ± 6 m during the last three glaciations (MIS2, MIS6, MIS8) but reached exceptionally low values of more than − 150 ± 10 m during the preceding glaciations MIS10 and MIS 12 at about 340 and 434 kyr BP. This general time framework and sedimentological interpretation has been confirmed by preliminary results from two deep drillings during the PROMESS cruise (july 2004), which validate our methodology. However, no detailed and absolute datings of such witnesses are available so far, so that we cannot prove that these levels are the lowest ever reached during each glacials, but they correspond undoubtedly to the last preserved shoreface before rapid sea-level rise. We also suggest that the abrupt change in sealevel maxima might be the overprint of 400 kyr orbital periodicity cycles. Last but not least, these results prove that the Golfe du Lion is indeed a unique laboratory to study paleoclimates and sea-level variations on a larger time scale. Further work is needed for a complete glacio-hydro-sedimento isostatic modelling of each sequence and each glacial to further constraint local sea level versus global sea level and quantify, in particular the relative effect of glacio-hydro isostatic effect (which differ according to ice sheet extend) but also of erosion-sedimentation isostatic effect (erosion on land and deposition on the outer shelf and slope).

The wide continental shelf of the Gulf of Lion (up to 70 km) has been the object of numerous investigations since the early days of oceanography. Yet, the question of sequences duration, the mechanisms of deposition and factors implied remained unanswered. A study of a very dense grid of Very High Resolution (VHR) seismic reflection (Sparker) data associated with surficial cores both, collected by IFREMER between 1992 and 2001 on the outer shelf and upper slope offshore of Sète in the Languedoc region gives a new insight into these issues. Analysis of the 3D geometry of the sedimentary record reveals a basic depositional pattern consisting of a pair of horizontally juxtaposed and downlapping prisms. Prism PI with low angle clinoforms (<1°) lies on the upper part of the shelf and is interpreted to be prodeltaic-offshore deposits. Prism PII with steeply dipping clinoforms (4°) lies on the outer shelf between 40 and 70 km from the present day coastline and is interpreted to be littoral deposits. Results obtained from integrating lithology, palynology, micropaleontology, seismic stratigraphy, stratigraphic simulation, support the hypothesis that the basic depositional pattern records a 100 000-years glacioeustatic (interglacial/glacial) cycle. As previously suggested by Aloïsi [Aloïsi, J.C., 1986. Sur un modèle de sédimentation deltaïque: contribution à la connaissance des marges passive, Thèse de Doctorat d'Etat. Université de Perpignan, 162 pp], prisms PI corresponds to deposition at high sea level and prisms PII to deposition during low sea level at glacial maxima. Five sequences of paired prisms capped by five major erosion surfaces have been identified and modelled showing that the corresponding glacioeustatic cycles (the last five cycles at least) are recorded on the shelf of the western part of the Gulf of Lio

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A 220-meters thick carbonate-dominated succession has been deposited in shallow-water, saline lake environments during the Lower to Middle Priabonian (MP17A-MP18 mammal zones) in the Saint-Chaptes Basin (south-east France). The palaeoenvironmental, paleoclimatic and palaeogeographic significance of such salt lake carbonates has been deciphered on the basis of a multi-proxy analyses including 1) depositional and diagenetic features, 2) biological components (molluscs, benthic foraminifera, characean gyrogonites, spores and pollens), 3) carbon and oxygen stable isotopes, 4) trace elements and 5) clay mineralogy. Five stages of lacustrine system evolution have been identified: 1) freshwater closed lake under dry climate (unit U1); 2) fresh to brackish water lacustrine deltaic system with a mixed carbonate-siliciclastic sedimentation under relatively wet climatic conditions (unit U2); 3) saltwater lacustrine carbonate system under humid climatic setting (unit U3); 4) evaporitic lake (unit U4); and 5) closed lake with shallow-water carbonate sedimentation under subtropical to Mediterranean climate with dry seasons (unit U5). Upper Eocene aridification is evidenced to have started as early as the earliest Priabonian (unit U1: MP17A mammal zone). A change from humid to dryer climatic conditions is recorded between units U3 and U4. The Lower-Mid Priabonian saline lake is interpreted as an athalassic (inland) lake that have been transiently connected with neighboring salt lakes influenced by seawater and/or fed with sulfates deriving from recycling of evaporites. Maximum of connection with neighboring salt-lakes (Mormoiron Basin, Camargue and Central grabens, Hérault Basin) likely occurred during unit U3 and at the base of unit U5. The most likely sources of salts of these adjacent basins are: 1) Triassic evaporites derived from salt-diapirs (Rhône valley) or from paleo-outcrops located east of the Durance fault or offshore in the Gulf of Lion; or 2) marine incursions from the south, through Paleogene grabens in the Gulf of Lion.

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The identification of three independent rifting events in the Colorado basin area highlights the complexity of its Mesozoic rifting history, which ended in the Early Cretaceous with the opening of the South Atlantic Ocean. A first rifting event, associated with the extensional reactivation of previously compressive thrusts of the Ventania-Cape fold belt, is transected by faults forming the main depocenters of the Colorado and possibly the adjacent Salado basin. The second and main rifting stage is correlated with the Early Jurassic Karoo rifting. In the Early Cretaceous, WNW-ESE extension produced NNE-trending landward-dipping faults, concentrated in the outer 100-200 km of the continental crust domain, possibly coeval with SDR emplacement. This is the first identification of three superimposed rifting settings in the southern South Atlantic realm and is key to understanding the complex Mesozoic breakup history of SW Gondwana.

Deep-water sedimentation is currently a major focus of both academic research and industrial interest. Recent studies have emphasized the fundamental influence of seafloor topography on the growth and morphology of submarine 'fans': in many turbidite systems and turbidite hydrocarbon reservoirs, depositional system development has been moderately to strongly confined by pre-existing bounding slopes. This publication examines aspects of sediment dispersal and accumulation in deepwater systems where basin-floor topography has profoundly affected deposition, and the associated controls on hydrocarbon reservoir architecture and heterogeneity. The papers herein offer a global perspective which is wide-ranging in terms of both approach and location, including contrasting case studies of outcrop, subsurface, modern and experimental systems.