The Messinian succession of the Crotone Basin (southern Italy) II: Facies architecture and stratal surfaces across the Miocene–Pliocene boundary

Abstract

The upper Messinian to lower Zanclean succession of the Crotone Basin, a forearc basin located along the Ionian side of the Calabrian Arc (southern Italy), consists of a turbidite-bearing succession (the Petilia Policastro Formation) overlying evaporites and abruptly passing upward into coarse-grained continental deposits (the Carvane Conglomerate), which are in turn overlain by distal shelf to slope mudstones (the Cavalieri Marl). The marked environmental changes from subaqueous to continental and vice versa documented by the studied succession are inferred to be the expression of basin-scale tectonics, leading to uplift and exposure, superposed on the Mediterranean-scale base-level rise that followed the acme of the Messinian Salinity Crisis. The upper part of the succession documents a transgressive trend probably initiated within the Carvane Conglomerate, and further testified by the presence of a ravinement surface marked by a transgressive lag at the base of the Zanclean Cavalieri Marl, pointing to a non-catastrophic deepening occurred near the end of the Messinian.