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We present a high-resolution paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental reconstruction of the last five millennia from a shallow water marine sedimentary record from the central Tyrrhenian Sea (Gulf of Gaeta) using planktonic foraminifera, pollen, oxygen stable isotope, tephrostratigrapy and magnetostratigrapy. This multiproxy approach allows to evidence and characterize nine time intervals associated with archaeological/cultural periods: Eneolithic (base of the core–ca. 2410 BCE), Early Bronze Age (ca. 2410 BCE–ca. 1900 BCE), Middle Bronze Age–Iron Age (ca. 1900 BCE–ca. 500 BCE), Roman Period (ca. 500 BCE–ca. 550 CE), Dark Age (ca. 550 CE–ca. 860 CE), Medieval Climate Anomaly (ca. 860 CE–ca. 1250 CE), Little Ice Age (ca. 1250 CE–ca. 1850 CE), Industrial Period (ca. 1850 CE–ca. 1950 CE), Modern Warm Period (ca. 1950 CE–present day). The reconstructed climatic evolution in the investigated sedimentary succession is coherent with the short-term climate variability documented at the Mediterranean scale. By integrating the planktonic foraminiferal turnover from carnivorous to herbivorous–opportunistic species, the oxygen isotope record and the pollen distribution, we document important modification from the onset of the Roman Period to the present-day. From ca. 500 CE upwards the documentation of the cooling trend punctuated by climate variability at secular scale evidenced by the short-term δ 18 O is very detailed. We hypothesise that the present day warm conditions started from the end of cold Maunder event. Additionally, we provide that the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) directly affected the central Mediterranean region during the investigated time interval.

New centennial-scale data of benthic foraminifera assemblages and of stable isotopes of foraminifera shells from the Sicily Channel, representative of surface and bottom waters, over the interval between about 140 and 110 kyr BP, are presented. During this period anoxia developed on the eastern Mediterranean basin and sapropel S5 deposited. Although anoxic sediments have not been deposited in the Sicily Channel, this area is strategic to study the character of intermediate waters, whose chemical-physical properties strongly precondition the eastern Mediterranean deep water formation. So far, no data from these water masses have been obtained, apart from the isotopic composition of shells of the planktonic foraminifera species Neogloboquadrina pachyderma which lives at about 200. m depth, thus quite far from the intermediate water core. We conclude that, although with a reduced rate, the flowing of intermediate waters coming from the eastern basin, together with the surface water masses with a clear western affinity, implies the maintenance of an anti-estuarine circulation pattern across the Sicily Channel and in the Mediterranean Sea, also during one of the most severe episodes of anoxia of the Late Pleistocene. © 2011 Elsevier B.V.

A high-resolution correlation between an orbital tuned Middle and early Late Miocene record of the Central Paratethys and an astronomically calibrated Mediterranean deep marine composite record is proposed. The astronomical tuning of the Sarmatian and Pannonian sedimentary record in the Vienna Basin confirms that the beginning of the Pannonian regional stage (lower Tortonian), dated in this work at 11.42 My, is very close to the Miller event Mi5. It coincides with a period of minimum amplitude in the 1.2-Myr obliquity cycle, which in the Mediterranean marine record corresponds with a drastic change in the planktonic foraminiferal fauna. In addition, the warmer period between Mi5 and Mi6-corresponding to a maximum in the long-term 2.3-Myr eccentricity cycle-coincides with a long interval of lignite deposition in the Paratethyan realm. The sedimentation pattern shown by high-frequency cyclicity between lignite and normal sediments reflects a primary influence of 100-kyr eccentricity cycles on the sedimentation system of the Central Paratethys, which corresponds with small- and large-scale sapropel-clusters hierarchical organization in the Mediterranean record. The Badenian/Sarmatian boundary (astronomically dated at 13.32 Myr) does not coincide with a low-amplitude variation in the 1.2-Myr obliquity cycle and any Mi events. This orbital configuration is supported by the paleoclimatic and paleoecologic data of the Late Badenian and Early Sarmatian, which both represent a warm temperate system with stagnant bottom-water conditions. Finally, the transitional phase from a temperate Early Sarmatian to a warmer Late Sarmatian, associated with predominant carbonate sedimentation, coincides with the glacio-eustatic isotope event Mi4, while the entire Late Sarmatian spans a complete 1.2-Myr obliquity cycle. © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.