Quantitative and qualitative bathymetric analysis of Neogene benthic foraminiferal faunas from eight drill sites in the Mediterranean Sea confirms the presence of deep basins immediately after the deposition of the evaporites of the Messinian. Analysis of the faunas of two sites which penetrated the evaporitic sequence establishes the existence of deep basins in both the eastern and western Mediterranean prior to the Messinian. Although the recovery of samples near the upper and lower boundaries of the evaporites was not continuous there is no evidence of the presence of faunas which are transitional between the deep water assemblages and the shallow water Messinian faunas. These observations all lend considerable support to a deep basin desiccation model for the formation of the evaporites.
Benthic foraminifers from Neogene strata (Burdigalian-Pleistocene) are described and illustrated. Brief taxonomic and distributional notes, both stratigraphic and geographic, are given for the more common and paleoecologically interesting species.
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