Coastal Stratigraphy of Southern Mallorca and Its Implications for the Pleistocene Chronology of the Mediterranean Sea

Abstract

Detailed geomorphologic, stratigraphic, and paleontologic investigations on the southern littorals of Mallorca indicate the existence of at least three complex glacio-eustatic regressional intervals, belonging to the last three glacial complexes of the Pleistocene. The incipient regressive oscillations were initiated by climatically induced colluviation and followed by deposition of regressional aeolianites. Deflation of freshly exposed marine deposits necessarily ceases soon after the negative fluctuation stops. A complete stratigraphy of the actual regressional parts of each major glacial low-water stage is locally preserved and discussed in detail for several sites. Three major dunes characterize the last regression, four the penultimate regression and at least two the antepenultimate regression. The transgressive intervals with thermophile marine faunas presumably corresponded to interglacial intervals. They comprise several oscillations, the youngest of which, in the case of the last and penultimate ...