This project is designed to improve the general knowledge concerning one specific and fundamental problem of the Messinian salinity crisis: the chronology and modalities of deposition of the giant salt bodies occurring in several basins from the different geotectonic contexts within the Mediterranean area. These deposits, only known through seismic, borehole and mine gallery observations, are still poorly understood in terms of 1) depositional processes and settings (marine/non marine, deep-water/shallow-water), 2) chronology (onset of deposition, total time elapsed, relationships with cyclical forcing), 3) genetic and stratigraphic relationships with adjacent Messinian evaporitic (primary and/or clastic) and terrigenous units.
This question remains a strong obstacle to the full comprehension of the complex of palaeoenvironmental changes related to the Messinian salinity crisis, especially to the efforts for palaeohydrologic and palaeoclimatic modelling.
As a matter of fact, the stratigraphic uncertainties weaken all the attempts to reconstruct the Messinian palaeogeographic setting of the Mediterranean, and, as a consequence, the formulation of reliable and accepted evolutionary models of the MSC.
The project aims to contribute to such problems through the study of the salt bodies of some of the Messinian basins of Sicily, Calabria and Tuscany. For many of such basins, the integration of core data, direct mine gallery observations, seismic and surface geology makes it possible the attempt to define with accuracy the stratigraphic position of salt unit and their meaning within the regional geological evolution. Data and interpretations will be compared with the other buried and outcropping Mediterranean Messinian successions (Spain, Crete, Northern Apennines, deep Mediterranean basins), to evaluate their implications at a wider scale about the general evolutionary models of the salinity crisis.
This proposal has a great importance in order to provide a more comprehensive picture of the Messinian salinity crisis through the comparison and integration with future data of the ultradeep drilling project of deep Mediterranean basins. This project, currently being submitted by an international research group within the IODP frame, will shed new light on some of the fundamental questions still waiting an answers since many years. The data will be of fundamental importance and will significantly improve the researches in several fields, particularly in the palaeoceanographic modelling. We believe that their importance will be further strenghtened by the possibility of integration with similar data from other Mediterranean areas. According to this view, the study proposed in this research project concerns key areas to establish the relationships between the MSC evolution in western and eastern Mediterranean basins.
The principal objectives of the project (task 1) will be the definition of the depositional processes and settings and the stratigraphy of Messinian salt-bearing units (halite and potash salts) within the orogenic basins of Sicily, Calabria and Tuscany. In particular, the fundamental points to achieve the principal objective concern the definition of: 1) nature and age of lower and upper boundaries of salt bodies; 2) depositional settings and processes of salt deposits; 3) detailed stratigraphy and depositional trends of salt bodies and their relationships with regional-scale tectonics and cyclical climatic forcing; 4) genetic and stratigraphic relationships with adjacent Messinian units. This objective will be achieved through facies and stratigraphic analysis of outcropping successions integrated with subsurface data, both already available for study (salt mines, boreholes, seismic) and to be acquired with this project (a new continuously cored borehole, 200 m depth, in the Realmonte mine). To do that, all the scattered data and information from salt and sulphur mines and/or hydrosolution plants of the study areas will be organized in a web database.
The achievement of the main aim of this project has tight feed-back relationships with several topics that have been indicated as the objectives of specific sub-projects (tasks); they will be carried out through an interdisciplinary approach by specific working groups with scientific personnel from all the Research Units:
task 2 - regional-scale structural-stratigraphic setting of Messinian basins during the pre-, syn- and post-evaporitic stages (Late Tortonian-Early Pliocene);
task 3 - facies characterization, time and areal distribution of the large family of primary and diagenetic limestone rocks usually grouped under the generic term "Calcare di base" and of primary/resedimented gypsum deposits;
task 4 - palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental conditions during pre- and evaporitic stages;
task 5 - origin and periodicities of the high and ultra-high frequency cyclicity of salt deposits;
task 6 - role played by salt deposits during the post-Messinian tectonic evolution.

key words:

Messinian Salinity Crisis, Evaporites, Halite, Orogenic basins, Palaeogeography, Stratigraphy, Palaeoclimatology, Mediterranean Sea, Tectonostratigraphy

download the proposal (PDF - 540 kb)

Project coordinator:

Marco Roveri, Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Parma University

local units and coordinators:

Roma3 University - Domenico Cosentino
Catania University - Mario Grasso
Parma University - Marco Roveri
Modena and Reggio Emilia University - Stefano Lugli
Firenze University - Adele Bertini

other Research Institutions involved in the project:

ISMAR, CNR, Bologna, Italy


collaborations:

Eni-Agip
Utrecht University
Italkali