Time‐probabilistic approach to the late Miocene Messinian salinity crisis: Implications for a disconnected Paratethys

Madof, Andrew S.; Ryan, William B. F.; Bertoni, Claudia; Laugier, Fabien J.; Zaki, Abdallah S.; Baumgardner, Sarah

doi:10.1111/ter.12579

Cited by 9 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Even more extreme conditions occurred during the second MSC stage 16), as evidenced by the kilometer-thick deposits of salt found throughout and even in the deep parts of the Mediterranean. In the final stage of the MSC, periodic alternations of gypsum and marls (5.55-5.42 Ma) followed by the brackish 'Lago Mare' deposits (5.42-5.33 Ma) reflect increased freshwater influx to the basin possibly from the Paratethys in the North (17), although the Paratethyan-inflow hypothesis has been contested (18). Normal marine conditions were established once more in the Mediterranean at the base of the Zanclean at 5.33 Ma (19), after the restoration of the connection with the Atlantic Ocean (20).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Late Miocene transformation of Mediterranean Sea biodiversity

Agiadi,

Hohmann,

Gliozzi

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Understanding deep-time marine biodiversity change under the combined effects of climate and connectivity changes is fundamental for predicting the impacts of modern climate change in semi-enclosed seas. We quantify the Late Miocene-Early Pliocene (11.63-3.6 Ma) taxonomic diversity of the Mediterranean Sea for calcareous nannoplankton, dinocysts, foraminifera, ostracods, corals, molluscs, bryozoans, echinoids, fishes, and marine mammals. During this time, marine biota was affected by global climate cooling and the restriction of the Mediterranean's connection to the Atlantic Ocean that peaked with the Messinian Salinity Crisis. Although the net change in species richness from the Tortonian to the Zanclean varies by group, species turnover is greater than 30% in all cases. The results show clear perturbation already in the pre-evaporitic Messinian (7.25-5.97 Ma), with patterns differing among groups and sub-basins.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Late Miocene transformation of Mediterranean Sea biodiversity

Agiadi,

Hohmann,

Gliozzi

et al. 2024

Preprint

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“…6.7; e.g. Ryan, 2009;Camerlenghi et al, 2019;Madof et al, 2019Madof et al, , 2022Raad et al, 2021). Box model calculations show that 87 Sr/ 86 Sr values deviate measurably from relatively high oceanic values toward riverine values when the river discharge constitutes at least 25% of the water fluxes into a basin (Topper et al, 2014).…”

Section: 5mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One end-member hypothesis argues that Stage 3 sedimentation happened in endorheic lakes (e.g. Hsü et al, 1973aHsü et al, , 1978aCita et al, 1978Cita et al, , 1990Orszag-Sperber et al, 2000;Ryan, 2009;Madof et al, 2019Madof et al, , 2022Caruso et al, 2020;Heida et al, 2021;Raad et al, 2021). The other suggests that water sources such as Atlantic and/or Eastern Paratethys and large Mediterranean rivers (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Birth, evolution and demise of the Mediterranean Lago-Mare

Andreetto¹

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The Mediterranean Sea is a large sea almost completely enclosed by Europe, Africa, and SW Asia. Today, the continuous flow of Atlantic seawater through the Strait of Gibraltar balances the net water loss due to the excess of evaporation over input from rain and rivers and keeps the Mediterranean a marine basin with the water level equal to the global ocean level. In the late Miocene, the input of Atlantic seawater was through shallow gateways in southern Spain and northern Morocco. The exhumation of the Betic and Rif Cordilleras and orbitally-controlled regional climate change contributed to the step-by-step close these marine gateways and transformed the Mediterranean into an inhospitable evaporitic sea, starting at 5.96±0.02 Ma. The environmental and hydrological crisis that followed, known as the Messinian Salinity Crisis, peaked at ~5.55 Ma, when a 1.5-2 km-thick salt layer precipitated on the sea floor, and terminated at ~5.332 Ma, when normal marine conditions were re-established, perhaps as a consequence of catastrophic flooding at Gibraltar. The transitional interval from the giant salina to Mediterranean Sea that resembles what we know today is known as the Lago-Mare phase. Gypsum and brackish water biota from the Central Paratethys (approximately coinciding with the present-day Hungary-Slovenia) are both characteristic of Lago-Mare successions. This sedimentary and paleontological evidence suggest that the Mediterranean, during the Lago-Mare phase, experienced a complex history of inter- and extrabasinal connections, base-level fluctuations and extreme environmental and biological changes. This thesis aims to reconstruct the fiercely debated Mediterranean water level changes and identify the hydrological fluxes responsible for these Lago-Mare environmental and biological turnover events. It focuses on key sections exposed on-land and recovered from deep sea cores along an E-W transect across the Mediterranean with a multi-disciplinary approach that integrates biocyclostratigraphic analyses with high-resolution Sr-isotope ratios. The new data show that the Lago-Mare phase was a far more dynamic period of the Mediterranean history than previously thought. Large areas of the Mediterranean were occupied by an anomalohaline water mass predominantly formed by low-salinity waters from the Eastern Paratethys (i.e. the present-day Black-Caspian seas) and from the larger circum-Mediterranean rivers such as the Nile, the Rhône and currently dried North-African rivers. A small and possibly episodic Atlantic flux was a minor contributor. The regular variability of the Mediterranean’s freshwater budget with the astronomic precession combined with fluctuating Atlantic inflow and negligible outflow resulted in a Mediterranean base level that oscillated dramatically, but consistently below eustatic sea level. These precession-paced fluctuations caused the low-salinity Paratethyan biota to colonize the marginal areas of the Mediterranean at times of high base level and central areas during phases of low base level, gypsum to precipitate only in the deeper basins during the regressive phases and silled regions such as the Adriatic and the North Aegean to exist for long as some of the largest endorheic lakes.

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50th anniversary review of the Mediterranean desiccation hypothesis

Ryan

2023

Riv. Nuovo Cim.

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The first deep-sea drilling expedition in the Mediterranean chanced upon unanticipated discoveries when recovering deeply buried sediments of Late Miocene age that had once accumulated in ultra-shallow water and had later experienced subaerial exposure. Among these deposits were potassium and magnesium chlorides, desiccation cracks, fluvial gravels and shale bearing bottom-dwelling diatoms requiring sunlight, all indicative that the Mediterranean had evaporated one or more times to near dryness during what became called the Messinian Salinity Crisis. The initial presentation of these findings in 1973 was met with hesitancy. Had the present 2 to 4 km deep Mediterranean Basins been much shallower? How does one explain sediment sandwiched between beds of anhydrite and gypsum that hosted microfossils belonging to both ocean seawater and species that lived in fresh-to-brackish water lagoons? Did all of the evaporites originate on salt pans rimmed by alluvial aprons, or was there a deep-water period during which most of the 1 to 2 km thick layer of salt layer had arrived? How do the Late Miocene evaporites and mudstones outcropping in mobile belts along numerous Mediterranean margins fit with the scenario of a near empty Mediterranean? These inquiries are addressed in the style of a historical narrative reviewing 50 years of investigations by researchers turning their attention to the peripheral deposits, including those from the Paratethys. The stable isotopes of oxygen, carbon, sulfur, deuterium and strontium become crucial evidence in support of a substantial Mediterranean desiccation that harmonizes what appears to be unresolved conflicts among prior and even contemporary interpretations.

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Time‐probabilistic approach to the late Miocene Messinian salinity crisis: Implications for a disconnected Paratethys

Cited by 9 publications

References 40 publications

Late Miocene transformation of Mediterranean Sea biodiversity

Late Miocene transformation of Mediterranean Sea biodiversity

Birth, evolution and demise of the Mediterranean Lago-Mare

50th anniversary review of the Mediterranean desiccation hypothesis

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