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The biogeochemistry of hypersaline environments is strongly influenced by changes in biological processes and physicochemical parameters. Although massive evaporation events have occurred repeatedly throughout Earth history, their biogeochemical cycles and global impact remain poorly understood. Here, we provide the first nitrogen isotopic data for nutrients and chloropigments from modern shallow hypersaline environments (solar salterns, Trapani, Italy) and apply the obtained insights to ¿ 15 N signatures of the Messinian salinity crisis (MSC) in the late Miocene. Concentrations and ¿ 15 N of chlorophyll a, bacteriochlorophyll a, nitrate, and ammonium in benthic microbial mats indicate that inhibition of nitrification suppresses denitrification and anammox, resulting in efficient ammonium recycling within the mats and high primary productivity. We also suggest that the release of 15 N-depleted NH 3(gas) with increasing salinity enriches ammonium 15 N in surface brine (¿34.0¿). Such elevated ¿ 15 N is also recorded in geoporphyrins isolated from sediments of the MSC peak (¿20¿), reflecting ammonium supply sufficient for sustaining phototrophic primary production. We propose that efficient nutrient supply combined with frequent bottom-water anoxia and capping of organic-rich sediments by evaporites of the Mediterranean MSC could have contributed to atmospheric CO 2 reduction during the late Miocene. © 2019, The Author(s).

The evaporites of the Realmonte salt mine (Sicily, Italy) are important archives recording the most extreme conditions of the Messinian Salinity Crisis (MSC). However, geochemical approach on these evaporitic sequences is scarce and little is known on the response of the biological community to drastically elevating salinity. In the present work, we investigated the depositional environments and the biological community of the shale¿anhydrite¿halite triplets and the K¿Mg salt layer deposited during the peak of the MSC. Both hopanes and steranes are detected in the shale¿anhydrite¿halite triplets, suggesting the presence of eukaryotes and bacteria throughout their deposition. The K¿Mg salt layer is composed of primary halites, diagenetic leonite, and primary and/or secondary kainite, which are interpreted to have precipitated from density-stratified water column with the halite-precipitating brine at the surface and the brine-precipitating K¿Mg salts at the bottom. The presence of hopanes and a trace amount of steranes implicates that eukaryotes and bacteria were able to survive in the surface halite-precipitating brine even during the most extreme condition of the MSC. Graphical abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.]. © 2019, The Author(s).

Interpreting the origin of carbonate breccias requires a detailed analysis because they may be the result of a wide variety of processes that produce similar features. This is the case of the Lower Cretaceous carbonate breccias of the Cameros Basin (previously interpreted as slump or collapse breccias), whose origin is interpreted after performing a detailed sedimentary, petrographic and tectonic study. The studied carbonate breccias consist of angular carbonate mudstone fragments floating in a matrix of calcite and quartz crystals. The breccias are interbedded with, and laterally associated to, alternating layers of carbonate mudstone and calcite and quartz pseudomorphs after gypsum, which show strong similirities to the breccia fragments and matrix, respectively, suggesting that the brecciated beds were originally composed of identical alternating carbonate mudstone and gypsum layers as the unbrecciated layers. The breccias are associated with frequently polyharmonic deformation structures, which are similarly oriented as the regional tectonic structures, indicating that they are related with the alpine contractional deformation of this area of the Cameros Basin. All these features suggest that the carbonate breccias were formed by tectonic deformation of alternating layers of carbonate mudstone and calcium sulphate, which have very different rheological behaviours. As a result, during tectonic deformation, sulphate flowed and carbonate layers were broken and displaced, producing a breccia of carbonate fragments within a sulphate groundmass. Afterwards, the sulphate groundmass was replaced by quartz and calcite, and the breccia acquired its final composition., Depto. de Geodinámica, Estratigrafía y Paleontología, Fac. de Ciencias Geológicas, TRUE, pub