Messinian

and clay deposits in the Sorbas basin near Sorbas, southern Spain. Evaporite deposits of Messinian age are common throughout the Mediterranean. The Messinian was introduced by Swiss stratigrapher Karl Mayer-Eymar in 1867. Its name comes from the Italian city of Messina on Sicily, where the Messinian evaporite deposit is of the same age. The base of the Messinian is at the first appearance of the planktonic foram species Globorotalia conomiozea and is stratigraphically in the middle of magnetic chronozone C3Br.1r. The Global Boundary Stratotype Section and Point for the Messinian is located in a section at Oued Akrech, near the Moroccan capital Rabat. The top of the Messinian (the base of the Zanclean Stage and Pliocene Series) lies with the top of magnetic chronozone Cr3 (about 100,000 years before the Thvera normal subchronozone C3n.4n). The top is also close to the extinction level of the calcareous nanoplankton species Triquetrorhabdulus rugosus (the base of biozone CN10b) and the first appearance of nanoplankton Ceratolithus acutus. == Palaeoclimatology ==

In South Asia, the first part of the Messinian up to about 6.0 Ma is associated with major drying that transformed the region from being mainly dominated by C3 forest and woodland to a C4 savanna. The Messinian in Namibia is associated with a climatic transition from the relatively wet Tortonian climate to the arid one of the Zanclean. == References ==