This project is aimed to improve the general knowledge about some specific aspects of the environmental changes underwent by the Mediterranean area during the Messinian salinity crisis. The main problem is well known by the scientific community and concerns the possibility to achieve a better paleogeographic framework of the Mediterranean area, still poorly known, in particular for the short post-evaporitic interval (5.61-5.33 Ma). This is mainly due to the lack of reliable criteria for detailed, long distance correlations between sedimentary successions developed in very different physiographic and structural settings. The main goal of this project is the definition of a high-resolution stratigraphic framework for such time interval, based on a chronology of events recognizable and correlatable throughout the Mediterranean area.

For this objective (task 1), a specific working group and a serires of regionally-based sub-groups with scientific personnel from all the Local Units will be created to study the selected area and compare the different stratigraphies. Based on this high-resolution stratigraphic scheme, other specific issues, representing important problems related to the salinity crisis and occurring in the Late Messinian time interval, will be then studied at a Mediterranean scale. These issues represent the objective of specific subprojects, or tasks, that will be carried out by interdisciplinary working groups formed by specialists of the differente Local Units, according to their competences:

task 2 - timing, modes and role of tectonic activity in the genesis of Messinian events;

task 3 - the origin of the intra-Messinian erosional surface and associated deposits;

task 4 - timing and modes of the transition from iperhaline to ipohaline, Lago Mare stage;

task 5 - the climatic control of high-frequency cyclical changes in the Lago Mare depositional systems;

task 6 - time and space distribution and paleogeographic implications of marine incursions within the Lago Mare successions;

task 7 - depositional and diagenetic history of Latest Messinian evaporitic deposits (Upper Evaporites);

task 8 - sovra-regional synthesis of the Miocene/Pliocene transition

key words:

Messinian Salinity Crisis, Physical Stratigraphy, Palaeoecology, Palaeogeography, Biostratigraphy, Palaeoclimatology, Mediterranean, High-frequency palaeoenvironmental changes, Tectonics

download the proposal (PDF - 132 kb)

Project coordinator:

Marco Roveri, Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Parma University

local units and coordinators:

Roma3 University - Domenico Cosentino
Catania University - Mario Grasso
Ancona University - Alessandra Negri
Sassari University - Vincenzo Pascucci
Bologna University - Gian Andrea Pini
Parma University - Marco Roveri
Siena University - Fabio Sandrelli

other Research Institutions involved in the project:

ISMAR, CNR, Bologna, Italy
INGV, Roma, Italy
University of Firenze
University of Pisa

collaborations:

Eni-Agip
Utrecht University