Messinian
Sixth and last age of the Miocene Epoch, about 7 to 5 million years ago
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Through Year, Switzerland and Extinction
The Messinian overlaps the Turolian European Land Mammal Mega Zone (more precisely MN 12 and 13) and the Pontian Central European Paratethys Stage. It also overlaps the late Huayquerian and early Montehermosan South American Land Mammal Ages, and falls inside the more extensive Hemphillian North American Land Mammal Age.
During the Messinian, around 6 million years ago, the Messinian salinity crisis took place, which brought about repeated desiccations of the Mediterranean Sea.
Definition
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.
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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.