Coralline red algal assemblage from the Middle Pliocene shallow-water temperate carbonates of the Monte Cetona (Northern Apennines, Italy)

Abstract

During the Pliocene and Pleistocene, the Monte Cetona (Northern Apennines, central Italy) was part of an elongated island. The Middle Pliocene deposits around the Monte Cetona are represented by shallow-water marine carbonates rich in coralline red algae and bryozoans. These skeletal carbonates, characterising a coralline algaldominated factory, were analysed in terms of microfacies, taxonomy, and growth-forms of coralline red algal assemblage. Three microfacies were distinguished on the basis of component distribution and fabric analysis: coralline algal rudstones, coralline algal floatstones, and bioclastic packstones. Skeletal components are commonly abraded, bioeroded, and encrusted. The shallow-water skeletal carbonates are strongly bioturbated and any primary sedimentary structure is obliterated. The distribution of the coralline growth-forms suggests a decreasing hydrodynamic gradient from the coralline algal rudstone, through the coralline algal floatstone to the bioclastic packstone microfacies. The coralline algal flora consists of eight species representing the subfamilies Lithophylloideae, Mastophoroideae and Melobesioideae. The assemblage is dominated by lithophylloids. Other biogenic components are bryozoans, barnacles, echinoderms, and benthic foraminifera. These coralline algal assemblages were deposited just above the fair-weather wave base and indicate a shallow-marine temperate water setting for the eastern Tyrrhenian Sea during the Mid Pliocene

Upper Eocene larger foraminiferal–coralline algal facies from the Klokova Mountain (southern continental Greece)

“…Aguirre 1992;Aguirre et al 1993;Perrin et al 1995;Bassi 1995Bassi , 2005Rasser 2000;Checconi et al 2007). Studies carried out on Priabonian and Rupelian carbonate deposits showed successions in coralline and larger foraminiferal assemblages reflecting palaeoecological constraints (e.g.…”

Tethys returns to the Mediterranean: Success and Limits of Tropical Re-Colonization

“…Concrete data about the paleo-temperature in the Mediterranean is supplied by the presence of the symbiont-bearing foraminiferan Amphistegina in the Tyrrhenian Sea, but the absence there of Porites reefs (Checconi et al 2007). Th e foraminiferan is limited by the winter isotherm 14 °C (Langer 2008), which is slightly higher than the 13.5 °C encountered there presently, but lower than the 15 °C which is the minimum for the hermatypic corals like Porites (Por 2008).…”

Selective mineral composition, functional test morphology and paleoecology of the agglutinated foraminiferal genus Colominella Popescu, 1998 in the Mediterranean Pliocene (Liguria, Italy)

“…This interpretation is supported by the low abundance in the studied samples of opportunistic benthic species, such as buliminids and uvigerinids (Table 2b), that proliferate when abundant organic flux reaches the sea floor (Jorissen et al 1992(Jorissen et al , 1995 and also by the absence of typical oligotrophic larger foraminifera (Amphistegina). These are common in oligotrophic conditions of coeval shallow-water successions in the Mediterranean area and still persist today in the Aegean Sea and Levantine Basin (Checconi et al 2007;Mancin et al 2009;Triantaphyllou et al 2009). 4) Substrate with a high terrigenous content, vegetated in the neighbouring inner-shelf portions: these features are supported by the high occurrence of the species Quinqueloculina mediterranensis, Elphidium crispum and E. macellum that usually lived in the vegetated zone and, by other shallow-water indexes that preferred muddy to sandy substrates, such as Ammonia and textulariids, and by the high percentage of shallow infaunal species, which need soft substrates (Table 1).…”

“…This ecological parameter, together with the occurrence of substrates with high terrigenous content and the lack of widely extended hard surfaces, probably limited the development of Amphistegina assemblages that frequently occurred in open oligotrophic carbonate environments in coeval Mediterranean successions (e.g. Checconi et al 2007).…”