Chapter E3 Cyclostratigraphic estimate of the messinian stage duration

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses the cyclostratigraphic estimate of the Messinian stage duration. The duration of the Messinian stage has fascinated a generation of geologists, especially when, in the early 1960s, some radiometric dates and the first magnetostratigraphic calibrations suggested a remarkably short time interval for this peculiar stage, which is characterized in the Mediterranean domain, by a pervasive “salinity crisis”. The aim of this chapter is to show the cyclostratigraphic potential of the Northern Apennine sections, across the late Tortonian/early Messinian transition, and during a large part of the Messinian, and to discuss some of the sedimentary, radiometric, cyclic, and magnetostratigraphic constraints bearing on the possible duration of the Messinian stage, and of its component intervals (e.g., the evaporitic Messinian comprising the time interval of the Messinian salinity crisis s.str.). The peri-Adriatic Messinian is subdivided into three main intervals: A pre-evaporitic, an evaporitic or hyperhaline, and a post-evaporitic or hypohaline interval.