Chronology, Causes and Progression of the Messinian Salinity Crisis
letters to nature the cause, and the effects, of the isolation of the Mediterranean; the two basic explanations are (1) a large glacio-eustatic sea-level drop, Chronology, causes and related to expanding polar ice volume6, and (2) orogenic uplift accompanied by gravity-driven sliding of large nappe complexes in progression of the the Gibraltar arc7. Until now, correlations of stable-isotope (d18O and d13C) records from open-ocean sequences to the Messinian Messinian salinity crisis event stratigraphy of the Mediterranean have been ambiguous because of the absence of a reliable time frame for the MSC. The W. Krijgsman*, F. J. Hilgen², I. Raf®³, F. J. Sierro§ establishment of astronomical polarity timescales for the past & D. S. Wilsonk 10 Myr (refs 3, 11) provided a signi®cant advance in dating the * Paleomagnetic Laboratory ``Fort Hoofddijk'', Utrecht University, geological record and promised a solution for the MSC controver- Budapestlaan 17, 3584 CD Utrecht, The Netherlands sies. Unfortunately, the Mediterranean-based astronomical polarity ² Department of Geology, Utrecht University, Budapestlaan 4, 3584 CD Utrecht, timescale showed a gap during much of the Messinian (6.7±5.3 Myr The Netherlands ago)3, related to the presence of less-favourable sediments and the ³ Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, UniversitaÁ ``G. D'Annunzio'', notoriously complex geological history of the Mediterranean in Campus Universitario, Via dei Vestini 31, 66013 Chieti Scalo, Italy this time interval. However, the classic Messinian sediments § Department de
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