The Messinian Salinity Crisis is well known to have resulted from a significant drop of the Mediterranean sea level. Considering both onshore and offshore observations, the subsequent reflooding is generally thought to have been very sudden. We present here offshore seismic evidence from the Gulf of Lions and re‐visited onshore data from Italy and Turkey that lead to a new concept of a two‐step reflooding of the Mediterranean Basin after the Messinian Salinity Crisis. The refilling was first moderate and relatively slow accompanied by transgressive ravinement, and later on very rapid, preserving the subaerial Messinian Erosional Surface. The amplitude of these two successive rises of sea level has been estimated at ≤500 m for the first rise and 600–900 m for the second rise. Evaporites from the central Mediterranean basins appear to have been deposited principally at the beginning of the first step of reflooding. After the second step, which preceeded the Zanclean Global Stratotype Section and Point, successive connections with the Paratethyan Dacic Basin, then the Adriatic foredeep, and finally the Euxinian Basin occurred, as a consequence of the continued global rise in sea level. A complex morphology with sills and sub‐basins led to diachronous events such as the so‐called ‘Lago Mare’.This study helps to distinguish events that were synchronous over the entire Mediterranean realm, such as the two‐step reflooding, from those that were more local and diachronous. In addition, the shoreline that marks the transition between these two steps of reflooding in the Provence Basin provides a remarkable palaeogeographical marker for subsidence studies.

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Since the discovery of calcareous nannofossils, dinoflagellate cysts and planktonic foraminifers in deposits from the Dacic Basin, intensive research has been performed in order to evidence which gateway this microplankton used to connect Paratethys and the Mediterranean prior and after the Messinian Salinity Crisis (MSC). Such a gateway is also to be regarded at the origin of successive influxes of Paratethyan organisms (molluscs, ostracods, dinoflagellates) into the Mediterranean Basin ("Lago Mare" events). Observing that the İ stanbul area, usually proposed for this purpose, was inefficient, we examine the succession of marine well-dated pre-MSC and post-MSC deltaic deposits through the Balkans, from northern Greece to southern Romania, that constitutes a reliable candidate for such a marine corridor, the origin of which was caused by the regional tectonic extension. The reconstructed palaeogeography for high sea level episodes that encompassed the MSC clarifies the context of the so-called North Aegean Lake. This marine gateway probably evolved as a powerful river during the peak of the MSC, contributing to the deposition of clastics in the hydrocarbon Prinos Field. A tectonically controlled subsidence to the north and south of the Skopje region caused the closure of such a gateway.

Fruska Gora Mountain is a large scale antiform located at the southeast part of the Pannonian Basin between the Danube and Sava Rivers. It is built of Paleozoic and Mesozoic rocks with Neogene sediments on all sides and at the flanks. The Paleozoic and Mesozoic rocks are largely metamorphosed (age of the metamorphism is early Cretaceous) and they are intruded by Eocene/Oligocene latites and rhyodacites and Badenian basaltic trachyandesite. On Fruska Gora two major structural units are observed, the northern and southern structural units which are divided by the Srem dislocation striking NNW-SSE. The Tertiary magmatic rocks located on both sides of this dislocation were the subject of paleomagnetic analysis. Tectonically meaningful paleomagnetic directions are obtained from latites and rhyodacites, while basaltic trachyandesite has a secondary remanent magnetization. The obtained overall-mean paleomagnetic direction, after applying the correction for the general tilt of the Lower Miocene sediments, suggests a clockwise rotation (D = 210?, I = -45?, k = 21, ?95 = 14?) of 30? with respect to the present North of blocks on both sides of the Srem dislocation. The fact that close to the end of Miocene-Early Pliocene Fruska Gora rotated in a counterclockwise direction for 40? with respect to the present North means that all of Fruska Gora rotated in a clockwise direction for 70? with the respect to the present North in a short time after the intrusion of Eocene/Oligocene magmatic rocks and before Middle Miocene. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 176016]

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