Continental deposits from the early Pliocene lacustrine Ptolemais basin in NW Greece display rhythmical alternations of lignite and marl beds. Three parallel sections from this area are studied using magnetostratigraphy and cyclostratigraphy. The presence of the greater part of the Gilbert Chron enables the recognition of astronomical periodicities in the succession. Especially the precessional influence is evident, as it determines the lithological cycles. The continental Ptolemais composite section is correlated to the most recent astronomical time scale -and thus to the marine reference section: the Rossello composite from Sicily [C.G. Langereis, F.J. Hilgen, The Rossello composite: a Mediterranean and global reference section for the Early to early Late Pliocene, Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 104 (1991) 211-225] -on a bed-to-bed scale. It is concluded that lignite corresponds to an insolation minimum (beige layer in the Rossello composite), and marl to an insolation maximum (grey layer in the Rossello composite). This implies a precipitation increase during insolation maxima in early Pliocene continental Greece.

A high-resolution cyclostratigraphy for the rhythmically bedded lignite-marl sequences of the Lower Pliocene Ptolemais Formation is combined with 40 Ar= 39 Ar dating results of intercalated volcanic ash beds. Detailed field reconnaissance in three open-pit lignite mines reveals three end-member sediment types: lignites, composed primarily of organic material; grey marls, a mixture of carbonate and organic material; and beige marls, almost exclusively composed of carbonate. These lithologies are arranged in two basic types of sedimentary cycles: lignite-grey marl and lignite-beige marl cycles. A cyclostratigraphic composite section comprising 56 lignite-marl cycles is constructed which combines the consistent cycle patterns from three parallel sections. The concordant positions of 20 volcanic ash beds in these sections confirm the cyclostratigraphic correlations and indicate that the lignite-marl cycles result from regional, basin-wide forcing rather than lateral facies migrations. 40 Ar= 39 Ar ages on sanidine and biotite separates from nine volcanic ash beds were obtained by multiple total fusion and incremental-heating experiments. The 40 Ar= 39 Ar ages range between 5:00 š 0:05 and 4:04 š 0:04 Ma and are, in general, consistent with the stratigraphic order. A least-square linear regression using the measured 40 Ar= 39 Ar ages gives an average duration of 21:8 š 0:8 kyr per lignite-marl cycle. Evidently, the lignite-marl cycles in the Ptolemais Formation are linked to the precessional variation in the Earth's orbit through its influence on Mediterranean climate. For the first time, 40 Ar= 39 Ar dating results, totally independent from any other dating and or tuning technique, confirm the astronomical theory of climate change. The 40 Ar= 39 Ar ages of the volcanic ash beds show a constant ¾200 kyr (¾4.5%) age discrepancy with the astronomical ages of the same ash beds. This inconsistency remains difficult to explain. The discrepancy is unlikely to have resulted from erroneous astronomical ages, through incorrectness in the astronomical tuning, inaccuracies of the magnetostratigraphic data or the orbital time-series used, and=or errors in the APTS. The 40 Ar= 39 Ar dating results neither give clear indications for a possible source of error. From the excellent data set it is evident that neither loss of radiogenic 40 Ar, nor an underestimation of the contribution of Ca-and K-derived Ar isotopes could have caused the discrepancy. Moreover, the discrepancy is also beyond the errors in the systematic variables, like the decay constants of 40 K or the ages for the neutron-fluence monitors. © 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. J. Steenbrink et al. / Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 152 (1999) 283-303

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International audienceThe island of Rhodos represents an uplifted block in the largely submerged southeastern Aegean forearc. It has a complex history of subsidence, uplift and counterclockwise rotation during the Plio- Pleistocene, in response to the interplay between large-scale geodynamic processes. In this paper, we present a new chronostratigraphic framework for the continental Pliocene Apolakkia basin of southwestern Rhodos. We combine these time constraints with recently published chronostratigraphic data from the marine Plio- Pleistocene basins of northeastern Rhodos to reconstruct rotational and vertical motions. Our palaeomagnetic results identify two rotation phases for Rhodos: c. 10°(9 ±6°) counterclockwise (ccw) rotation between 3.8 and 3.6 Ma, and c. 17± 6° ccw rotation since 0.8 Ma. Between these phases, Rhodos tilted to the SE, drowning the southeastern coast to a depth of 500–600 m between 2.5 and 1.8 Ma, then to the NW, which resulted in the re-emergence of the drowned relief between 1.5 and 1.1 Ma. We relate the rotations of Rhodos to incipient formation of the south Aegean sinistral strike-slip system and the foundering of the Rhodos basin. The previously shown absence of Messinian evaporites in the deep-marine Rhodos basin in combination with the 3.8 Ma onset of ccw rotation of Rhodos constrains the onset of the formation of the south Aegean strikeslip system between 5.3 and 3.8 Ma. The formation of this strike-slip system is probably related to the interplay of oblique collision between the southeastern Aegean region and the northward moving African plate, the westward motion of Anatolia, gravitational spreading of the overthickened Aegean lithosphere and the recently postulated southwestward retreat of the African subducted slab along a subduction-transform edge-propagator fault

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