Reply to the comment on the paper “Lago Mare and the Messinian Salinity Crisis: Evidence from the Alboran Sea (S. Spain) by Do Couto et al. (2014) Marine and Petroleum Geology 52 (57–76)” authored by Serrano and Guerra-Merchán

The marine context of the Lago Mare deposit near Malaga has received agreement as well as its ascription to the third Lago Mare event of Clauzon et al. (2005). This deposit is not a " transitional unit towards normal marine conditions " but followed the marine reflooding of the Mediterranean Basin, allowing the connection with the Dacic Basin (Eastern Paratethys). We show that this Lago Mare event did not result from a climatic change leading to a dilution episode but from a high sea-level connection. Different interpretations on the respective effects of tectonics and eustatism on the sedimentary archives linked to the Messinian Salinity Crisis (MSC) are once more debated. They depend on (1) the duration assigned to the MSC and its subdivisions, (2) the amplitude of the successive sea level variations, and at last (3) the dimensional (local or regional) view of the MSC. Such discrepancies concern subsidiary matters which cannot mask first order facts and progresses in their knowledge.