TY - JOUR
T1 - Freshening of the Mediterranean Salt Giant: controversies and certainties around the terminal (Upper Gypsum and Lago-Mare) phases of the Messinian Salinity Crisis
AU - Andreetto, Federico
AU - Aloisi, Giovannni
AU - Raad, Fadl
AU - Heida, Hanneke
AU - Flecker, Rachel
AU - Agiadi, Konstantina
AU - Lofi, Johanna
AU - Blondel, Simon
AU - Bulian, Francesca
AU - Camerlenghi, Angelo
AU - Caruso, Antonio
AU - Ebner, Ronja
AU - Garcia-Castellanos, Daniel
AU - Gaullier, Virginie
AU - Guibourdenche, Laetitia
AU - Gvirtzman, Zohar
AU - Hoyle, Tom
AU - Meijer, Paul
AU - Moneron, Jimmy
AU - Sierro, Francisco J.
AU - Travan, Gaia
AU - Tzevahirtzian, Athina
AU - Vasiliev, Iuliana
AU - Krijgsman, Wout
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank the entire SALTGIANT community for many profitable workshops that inspired the development of this manuscript. This research was supported by the project SALTGIANT-Understanding the Mediterranean Salt Giant, a European project which has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program, under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie [grant agreement No 765256]. We greatly thank the two reviewers Domenico Cosentino and William Ryan and the editor Alessandra Negri for the fruitful comments provided that led to a substantial improvement of the manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Author(s)
PY - 2021/5
Y1 - 2021/5
N2 - The late Miocene evolution of the Mediterranean Basin is characterized by major changes in connectivity, climate
and tectonic activity resulting in unprecedented environmental and ecological disruptions. During the Messinian
Salinity Crisis (MSC, 5.97-5.33 Ma) this culminated in most scenarios first in the precipitation of gypsum around
the Mediterranean margins (Stage 1, 5.97-5.60 Ma) and subsequently > 2 km of halite on the basin floor, which
formed the so-called Mediterranean Salt Giant (Stage 2, 5.60-5.55 Ma). The final MSC Stage 3, however, was
characterized by a "low-salinity crisis", when a second calcium-sulfate unit (Upper Gypsum; substage 3.1, 5.55-
5.42 Ma) showing (bio)geochemical evidence of substantial brine dilution and brackish biota-bearing terrigenous
sediments (substage 3.2 or Lago-Mare phase, 5.42-5.33 Ma) deposited in a Mediterranean that received relatively
large amounts of riverine and Paratethys-derived low-salinity waters. The transition from hypersaline evaporitic
(halite) to brackish facies implies a major change in the Mediterranean’s hydrological regime. However, even
after nearly 50 years of research, causes and modalities are poorly understood and the original scientific debate
between a largely isolated and (partly) desiccated Mediterranean or a fully connected and filled basin is still
vibrant. Here we present a comprehensive overview that brings together (chrono)stratigraphic, sedimentological,
paleontological, geochemical and seismic data from all over the Mediterranean. We summarize the paleoenvironmental,
paleohydrological and paleoconnectivity scenarios that arose from this cross-disciplinary dataset
and we discuss arguments in favour of and against each scenario.
AB - The late Miocene evolution of the Mediterranean Basin is characterized by major changes in connectivity, climate
and tectonic activity resulting in unprecedented environmental and ecological disruptions. During the Messinian
Salinity Crisis (MSC, 5.97-5.33 Ma) this culminated in most scenarios first in the precipitation of gypsum around
the Mediterranean margins (Stage 1, 5.97-5.60 Ma) and subsequently > 2 km of halite on the basin floor, which
formed the so-called Mediterranean Salt Giant (Stage 2, 5.60-5.55 Ma). The final MSC Stage 3, however, was
characterized by a "low-salinity crisis", when a second calcium-sulfate unit (Upper Gypsum; substage 3.1, 5.55-
5.42 Ma) showing (bio)geochemical evidence of substantial brine dilution and brackish biota-bearing terrigenous
sediments (substage 3.2 or Lago-Mare phase, 5.42-5.33 Ma) deposited in a Mediterranean that received relatively
large amounts of riverine and Paratethys-derived low-salinity waters. The transition from hypersaline evaporitic
(halite) to brackish facies implies a major change in the Mediterranean’s hydrological regime. However, even
after nearly 50 years of research, causes and modalities are poorly understood and the original scientific debate
between a largely isolated and (partly) desiccated Mediterranean or a fully connected and filled basin is still
vibrant. Here we present a comprehensive overview that brings together (chrono)stratigraphic, sedimentological,
paleontological, geochemical and seismic data from all over the Mediterranean. We summarize the paleoenvironmental,
paleohydrological and paleoconnectivity scenarios that arose from this cross-disciplinary dataset
and we discuss arguments in favour of and against each scenario.
KW - Connectivity proxies
KW - Lago-Mare
KW - Mediterranean stratigraphy
KW - Messinian Salinity Crisis
KW - Paleogeography
KW - Paratethys
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85102121374&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.earscirev.2021.103577
DO - 10.1016/j.earscirev.2021.103577
M3 - Review article
SN - 0012-8252
VL - 216
SP - 1
EP - 47
JO - Earth-Science Reviews
JF - Earth-Science Reviews
M1 - 103577
ER -