Abstract
Abstract This research is focused on a complete reexamination of the evaporite facies present in all the cores that cut through the topmost deposits of the Messinian salinity crisis lying below the floor of the Mediterranean Sea (DSDP Legs 13 and 42A, ODP Legs 107 and 161). This review suggests that the uppermost evaporite units in both western and eastern deep Mediterranean basins consist mainly of clastic (gypsrudite, gypsarenite and gypsiltite) and fully subaqueous deposits (laminar gypsum, selenite and cumulate halite) that are partially affected by burial anhydritization and tectonic-induced recrystallization. No unequivocal evidence of shallow water or even supratidal (sabkha) deposition is in evidence, suggesting that at the very last phase of the salinity crisis the Mediterranean Sea did not experience desiccation, but that deposition took place under permanent subaqueous conditions.
Highlights
More than 40 years have passed since the discovery of the evaporite giants buried below the Mediterranean floor and the enunciation of the Messinian paradigm claiming for the deep desiccation of the Mediterranean (Hsü et al, 1973a,b)
We examined all the sections of the cores drilled through the Messinian evaporites in the Mediterranean by scientific cruises: DSDP Legs 13 and 42A (1975), ODP Legs 107 (1990), 160 (1998), 161 (1999); see Fig. 1 for location of the drilling sites
Previous studies of Messinian evaporites during the ODP-DSDP cruises pointed out the presence of shallow water to supra-tidal evaporitic deposits that became pivotal evidence for the definition of the “deep basin shallow water” model implying the deep desiccation of the Mediterranean (Hsü et al, 1973a,b)
Summary
More than 40 years have passed since the discovery of the evaporite giants buried below the Mediterranean floor and the enunciation of the Messinian paradigm claiming for the deep desiccation of the Mediterranean (Hsü et al, 1973a,b). Important exception is the work of Hardie and Lowenstein (2004), who questioned the original facies interpretation given by the scholars of the original deep desiccation model (Hsü et al, 1973a,b), suggesting that most interpreted shallow-water facies features described beneath the floor of the Mediterranean may be the result of deep-water deposition. This process of re-examination was restricted only to the DSDP drillcores of Legs 13 (1970) and 42A (1975).
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