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The late Miocene Messinian salinity crisis was an evaporitic episode that occurred throughout the Mediterranean; it concluded with a transition from hypersaline to fresher-water “lake sea” (Lago Mare) conditions prior to the Pliocene. Whereas numerous researchers propose that Lago Mare sediments accumulated in a Mediterranean-wide lake filled with Paratethyan waters, other workers reject this hypothesis. Here, to test this Paratethyan-overflow model, we develop a novel time-probabilistic approach to evaluate the distribution of precession-related deposits. We apply our methodology to 24 circum-Mediterranean sites, focusing on two previously untested parameters: the probability of preserving intrabasin precession cycles; and the similarities in interbasin preservation. Our results, which show an increase in preservation and similarity in successively younger cycles, display a trend opposite to what is expected from a flooded Mediterranean. Consequently, we conclude that Lago Mare accumulations were deposited in disconnected, shallow lacustrine environments, thereby casting doubt on the widely accepted Paratethyan-supply hypothesis.

In contrast to the much-studied onshore and deep offshore post-Messinian sedimentary history of the Gulf of Lion, the continental shelf had been poorly explored until recently. New seismic data, acquired by ELF Oil Company on the Languedoc-Roussillon shelf (Western Mediterranean Sea), from Cap Creus in the SW to Cap d'Agde in the NE, together with data from previously drilled exploratory wells, allow us to propose a scenario for margin reconstruction following the Messinian Salinity Crisis. The seismic data display a complex pattern of prograding clinoforms and buried submarine canyons. Following the crisis that eroded the previous margin, clinoforms developed as the new Pliocene margin prograded. Three major periods characterize the evolution of the post-Messinian margin. During the first period, after the filling of the Early Pliocene rias which are now above sea level, the prograding sedimentary prisms rapidly migrated seaward and filled the underlying Messinian topographic lows. The second period consists of a transitional interval, which began with a pronounced fall in sea level that probably corresponded with the end of the Lower Pliocene. Deposits were disturbed by large slumped structures. The third period is characterized by the appearance and development of submarine canyons near the subsequent shelf edges, maybe as a result of the increased glaciations and related sea-level changes. From that time onward, most of the Late Pliocene and Quaternary sediments were directly transferred down to the deep basin.

New cores from the upper continental slope off Romania in the western Black Sea provide a continuous, high-resolution record of sedimentation rates, clay mineralogy, calcium carbonate content, and stable isotopes of oxygen and carbon over the last 20000 yr in the western Black Sea. These records all indicate major changes occurring at 15 000, 12 800, 8400, and 7 100 yr before present. These results are interpreted to reflect an evolving balance between water supplied by melting glacial ice and other river runoff and water removed by evaporation and outflow. The marked retreat of the Fennoscandian and Alpine ice between 15 000 and 14 000 yr is recorded by an increase in clays indicative of northern provenance in Black Sea sediments. A short return toward glacial values in all the measured series occurs during the Younger Dryas cold period. The timing of the first marine inflow to the Black Sea is dependent on the sill depths of the Bosporus and Dardanelles channels. The depth of the latter is known to be - 80 +/- 5 m, which is consistent with first evidence of marine inundation in the Sea of Marmara around 12 000 yr. The bedrock gorge of the Bosporus reaches depths in excess of -100 m (relative to present sea level), though it is now filled with sediments to depths as shallow as -32 m. Two scenarios are developed for the connection of the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara. One is based on a deep Bosporus sill depth (effectively equivalent to the Dardanelles), and the other is based on a shallow Bosporus sill (less than -35 m). In the deep sill scenario the Black Sea's surface rises in tandem with the Sea of Marmara once the latter connected with the Aegean Sea, and Black Sea outflow remains continuous with inflowing marine water gradually displacing the freshwater in the deep basin. The increase in the delta(18)O of mollusk shells at 12 800 yr and the simultaneous appearance of inorganic calcite with low delta(18)O is compatible with such an early marine water influx causing periodic weak stratification of the water column. In the shallow sill scenario the Black Sea level is decoupled from world sea level and experiences rise and fall depending on the regional water budget until water from the rising Sea of Marmara breaches the shallow sill. In this case the oxygen isotope trend and the inorganic calcite precipitation is caused by increased evaporation in the basin, and the other changes in sediment properties reflect climate-driven river runoff variations within the Black Sea watershed. The presence of saline ponds on the Black Sea shelf circa 9600 yr support such evaporative draw-down, but a sensitive geochemical indicator of marine water, one that is not subject to temperature, salinity, or biological fractionation, is required to resolve whether the sill was deep or shallow.

Sedimentary rocks of Triassic-Neogene age are present on the Malta Escarpment of the eastern Mediterranean. Upper Triassic dolomitic limestones of shallow-water origin, at depths between 2.5 and 3.5 km, are similar in lithofacies to coeval platform carbonates of the Siracusa (Syracuse) belt of southern Sicily. Jurassic rocks include lower-middle Liassic shallow-water limestones followed by condensed hemipelagic lime deposits indicative of sinking and starving of the former platform. Cretaceous materials are represented by both red marls rich in planktonic faunas and reworked volcaniclastic breccias including shallow-water skeletal material. Paleogene rocks are both shallow-water limestones with corals, algae, and bivalves, and redeposited calcarenites of lithofacies similar to those from surface and subsurface of the Ragusa zone. Oligocene-?lower Miocene rocks from the escarpment are also similar in lithology to the coeval Ragusa deposits. Tortonian is represented by hemipelagic marls indicating open-marine environment. Pervasive dolomitization on lime crusts and on initial-stage fissure fillings with strongly positive isotopic oxygen ratio is thought to be a product of Messinian evaporitic drawdown. Pliocene sediments belong to the Trubi facies and consist of pelagic foraminiferal chalk. An impressive vertical relief existed by Miocene times, as attested by Messinian crusts and veins on or in rocks as old as Late Triassic. Our data do not provide evidence that this morphologic feature necessarily coincides with a continent-ocean transition. The present escarpment was produced by faulting, erosion, and defacement.