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New Imaging of the Messinian Salinity Crisis - Uncovering a Salt Giant
- Publisher: European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers
- Source: Conference Proceedings, 77th EAGE Conference and Exhibition - Workshops, Jun 2015, Volume 2015, p.1 - 4
Abstract
Through several examples we show that following sea-level fall and marginal erosion during the Messinian salinity crisis (MSC), clastic inputs into the eastern and western Mediterranean Sea are not distributed evenly in space and time but are mainly limited to the lower section of the Messinian salinity crisis depositional megasequence. Significant similarities around the Mediterranean Basin allow us to propose a Mediterranean Messinian salinity crisis depositional model. In the eastern and western deep basins the falling stage is illustrated by an early lowstand characterized by massive clastic inputs and meteoric waters from major Messinian rivers (the Rhone, Nile, and Antalya Gulf rivers)and deposited in an over-saturated sea-water. A late lowstand, started by rapid deposition of massive halite. The transition between the two lowstands is interpreted as the peak of the "salinity" crisis and the maximum dispersal of sands into the deep Mediterranean basins. The upper part of the evaporites is evidence for a transition between the late lowstand stage and an early transgressive stage.