Search results for "late Miocene"
showing 10 items of 75 documents
A functional multivariate analysis of Mesopithecus (Primates: Colobinae) humeri from the Turolian of Greece.
2012
12 pages; International audience; The genus Mesopithecus is well represented in the late Miocene of Greece by several recognized species. The present paper investigates functional aspects of the humeri of Mesopithecus delsoni/pentelicus, M. pentelicus and M. aff. pentelicus of several Turolian sites from central and northern Greece, using multivariate approaches. For these purposes, we selected significant humeral functional features, which were represented by 23 linear dimensions and three angles on 14 fossil humeri and 104 humeri from 10 genera and 22 species of extant African and Asian Colobines. All size-adjusted measurements were examined through a principal components analysis, follow…
Freshening of the Mediterranean Salt Giant: controversies and certainties around the terminal (Upper Gypsum and Lago-Mare) phases of the Messinian Sa…
2021
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)geochemica…
Ages and stratigraphical architecture of late Miocene deposits in the Lorca Basin (Betics, SE Spain): New insights for the salinity crisis in margina…
2020
International audience; Unlike most Neogene basins of the Betic Cordillera where the Salinity Crisis is dated to the Messinian, a contradictory Tortonian dating was proposed for evaporites of the Lorca Basin. As a consequence, complex structural models have been proposed in the literature to explain this discrepancy in the timing of evaporites. In order to integrate the Lorca Basin into the geological context of the western Mediterranean domain during the Late Miocene, new sedimentological and stratigraphical studies coupled with new dating were performed, which allow us to propose a Messinian age for both diatomite-bearing deposits and evaporites of the Lorca Basin. These new ages challeng…
Temporal and spatial diversification of the African disjunct genus Androcymbium (Colchicaceae)
2009
Abstract The genus Androcymbium (Colchicaceae) includes 57 species that are distributed in the extreme northern and southern portions of Africa, mainly in regions with a Mediterranean climate. We present the first phylogeographic analysis of the genus with species from all five of its distribution areas (North Africa, Horn of Africa, Namibia, western South Africa, and eastern South Africa). We used sequence data from six chloroplast regions and one nuclear region. Phylogeographic reconstructions were conducted using both parsimony and Bayesian inference methods. Molecular dating estimates using a Bayesian approach suggest a middle Miocene (13.4 ± 1.5 mya) origin of the genus; this approach …
Astronomical tuning of the Tortonian 87Sr/86Sr curve in the Mediterranean basin
2003
This work presents a detailed 87Sr/86Sr isotope curve for the interval 7.5–9.7 Ma obtained by a high-resolution analysis (sampling spacing of about 40 kyr) of an astronomically calibrated land-based sedimentary sequence exposed in the central Mediterranean area (Gibliscemi section, southern Sicily). The main aim is to verify a synchronous response of the Mediterranean seawater Sr isotope record to the oceanic forcing on the basis of multiple comparisons of the Gibliscemi record with published coeval 87Sr/86Sr curves. A good correlation with the 87Sr/86Sr data from the ODP site 926 (equatorial Atlantic ocean), considered to be the Sr chemostratigraphic reference section for the Late Miocene,…
Sea level and climate forcing of the Sr isotope composition of late Miocene Mediterranean marine basins
2014
Sr isotope records from marginal marine basins track the mixing between seawater and local continental runoff, potentially recording the effects of sea level, tectonic, and climate forcing in marine fossils and sediments. Our 110 new Sr-87/Sr-86 analyses on oyster and foraminifera samples from six late Miocene stratigraphic sections in southern Turkey, Crete, and Sicily show that Sr-87/Sr-86 fell below global seawater values in the basins several million years before the Messinian Salinity Crisis, coinciding with tectonic uplift and basin shallowing. 87Sr/86Sr from more centrally located basins (away from the Mediterranean coast) drop below global seawater values only during the Messinian S…
Late Messinian to Early Pliocene paleoenvironmental changes in the Melilla Basin (NE Morocco) and their relation to Mediterranean evolution
2003
Abstract Three major paleoenvironmental changes have been recognized during the late Miocene to Early Pliocene in the Melilla Basin (Northeastern Morocco) and compared with the regional events that affected the Mediterranean hydrology during this crucial period. The first change was the definitive conversion of the restricted marine conditions that prevailed since the end of the reef carbonate complex into lacustrine environments; this occurred around 5.8 Ma which is earlier than in the rest of the Mediterranean where the Lower Evaporites were still forming. These lacustrine settings display great similarities with the Lago-Mare environments that started in the Mediterranean during the depo…
Evolution tectonique méso-cénozoïque du bassin de Paris: contraintes stratigraphiques 3D
2000
Abstract 3D stratigraphic geometries of the intracratonic Meso-Cenozoic Paris Basin were obtained by sequence stratigraphic correlations of around 1 100 wells (well-logs). The basin records the major tectonic events of the western part of the Eurasian Plate, i.e. opening and closure of the Tethys and opening of the Atlantic. From earlier Triassic to Late Jurassic, the Paris Basin was a broad subsiding area in an extensional framework, with a larger size than the present-day basin. During the Aalenian time, the subsidence pattern changes drastically (early stage of the central Atlantic opening). Further steps of the opening of the Ligurian Tethys (base Hettangian, late Pliensbachian;...) and…
Marine Ostracods of the Upper Miocene of the Well Ashtart 1 (Gulf of Gabès, Southeastern Tunisia)
1988
We studied the ostracod fauna from a Late Miocene-Early Pliocene interval 600 m thick, in Ashtart 1, an offshore well in the Gulf of Gabes, southeastern Tunisia. Most of the 131 samples analyzed contained rich and much diversified populations of marine ostracods. In fact, 212 species have been found, belonging to 70 genera. Among them, eight genera, 122 species and subspecies, considered as new, will be described elsewhere. In spite of contamination, usual in oil wells due to caving from higher levels previously drilled, some stratigraphical and palaeoenvironmental features have been established. The last occurrence datum of a selected group of species has been defined with accuracy, and so…
Tectono-climatic evolution of a Neogene intramontane basin (Late Miocene Carboneras subbasin, southeast Spain): revelations from basin mapping and bi…
2002
Exceptional 3-D exposures of fault blocks forming a 5km x 10 km clastic sediment-starved, marine basin (Carboneras subbasin, southeast Spain) allow a test of the response of carbonate sequence stratigraphic architectures to climatic and tectonic forcing. Temperate and tropical climatic periods recorded in biofacies serve as a chronostratigraphic framework to reconstruct the status of the basin within three time-slices (late Tortonian---early Messinian, late Messinian, Pliocene). Structural maps and isopach maps trace out the distribution of fault blocks, faults, and over time, their relative motions, propagational patterns and life times, which demonstrate a changing layout of the basin bec…