Mediterranean Neogene stratigraphy: development and evolution through the centuries

Cita, Maria Bianca

doi:10.1111/j.1365-3091.2008.01025.x

Cited by 10 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Some of these workers such as Maria‐Bianca Cita, Isabella Premoli Silva and Raimondo Selli would come to be mainstays of the Deep‐Sea Drilling and Ocean Drilling Projects (DSDP and ODP) as well as prominent contributors to international panels on biostratigraphy. These developments are discussed by Cita (2009).…”

Section: The Emergence Of Modern Sedimentary Geology In the Mediterramentioning

confidence: 96%

The role of the Mediterranean region in the development of sedimentary geology: a historical overview

Fischer

Garrison

2008

Sedimentology

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The Mediterranean region, source of so much knowledge in the world, is the site of major advances in sedimentary geology. In addition to its economic and cultural richness, the geological and geographic diversity of the region, plus its active geological processes, have long stimulated indigenous scholars, along with attracting talented outsiders such as Steno, Lyell, Walther, Kuenen and Bagnold. Since classical Hellenic times, debates about the origin of fossils and the changing positions of sea-level served as catalysts for studies of sediments, sedimentary rocks and ancient life. The presence of geologically young and easily interpreted marine shell beds in many Mediterranean coastal areas adjacent to their modern analogues was a particular stimulus for progress in sedimentary geology, for example, the very advanced stratigraphic ideas of Leonardo da Vinci, expressed solely in his unpublished notebooks. Impeding progress was the geological complexity of facies, faunas and structure in the circum-Mediterranean Alpine belts. Once the secrets of these were unlocked, however, the Mediterranean region became the source of major discoveries about syn-sedimentary tectonics, carbonate platforms, pelagic and anoxic sediments, turbidites, evaporites, aeolian processes, cyclostratigraphy, magnetic stratigraphy and impact events. In many of these Mediterranean discoveries, the critical element is the occurrence of extensive Mesozoic-Cenozoic pelagic successions whose precise age dating was made possible by pioneering biostratgraphic studies using microfossils.

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Section: The Emergence Of Modern Sedimentary Geology In the Mediterramentioning

confidence: 96%

The role of the Mediterranean region in the development of sedimentary geology: a historical overview

Fischer

Garrison

2008

Sedimentology

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“…The fi rst serious attempt to develop a time scale corresponding to the rocks seen in the fi eld was made by Giovanni Arduino (1714-1795), who used the terms Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, and Quaternary, from oldest to youngest (Cita, 2009). Primary and Secondary fell into disuse long ago, there is currently debate whether to discontinue the use of Tertiary (Salvador, 2006), and the defi nition of Quaternary is under review (Gradstein et al, 2004, p. 28, 411).…”

Section: Earth and Life Historymentioning

confidence: 99%

Time-scale construction and periodizing in Big History: From the Eocene-Oligocene boundary to all of the past

Álvarez¹,

Claeys²,

Montanari³

2009

The Late Eocene Earth—Hothouse, Icehouse, and Impacts

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The Ancona Penrose Conference of October 2007 dealt with the current state of understanding of the late Eocene and the Eocene-Oligocene boundary, ~34 million years ago, a critical but very brief interval in Earth history. In this paper, we place that brief interval and the lessons from the conference in the broadest possible context by viewing them in the light of "Big History." This new intellectual concept maintains that there may be value in considering the entire past, from the big bang until today, as a single unit of study. At this very early stage in the study of Big History, not even the most fundamental questions have been well formulated, let alone answered. As a fi rst cut, Big History can be divided into regimes by considering the disciplines that study it: cosmic history (studied by cosmology and astronomy), Earth history (studied by geology), life history (studied by paleontology and evolutionary biology), and human history (studied by archaeology and historiography). These disciplines differ in terms of problems, techniques, and intellectual traditions. If we seek a common basis for a fi ner subdivision, the changes in utilization of the energy that have driven historical changes would seem like a good candidate. In two thought-provoking papers in 2007, Robert Aunger proposed "periodizing" all of history by placing divisions between periods when new methods of utilizing concentrated energy came into being, e.g., cellular metabolism or human agriculture. Aunger draws a parallel between this periodi za tion of Big History and the establishment of the geological time scale. In this paper, we carefully consider this parallel and conclude that periodizing history on the basis of energy use or any other conceptual scheme is quite different from the division of Earth history into the intervals that yielded the geological time scale. Both are important but they have different purposes. Timescale construction is a procedure that ties history to the rocks that record the history. It is a necessary step in reconstructing Earth and life history but is neither necessary nor possible in studying spe452-01 page 1 the history of cosmos or humanity. In contrast, periodizing history into intervals provides a conceptual framework on which to hang a growing understanding of history. We conclude that it is important to differentiate between (1) timescale construction, (2) correlating events, (3) dating events, and (4) periodizing history. In this light, Aunger's focus on changes in energy use remains an instructive way of periodizing history, but it must be clearly differentiated from timescale construction.

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“…Likewise, the stratigraphy of the Palaeozoic could be deciphered in the external zones of the Variscan and Caledonian orogens where stratigraphical relationships were still preserved in a relatively coherent manner. By contrast, in the Alps and Apennines, only the Tertiary post‐orogenic and foreland formations (Brocchi, 1809, 1814; Lyell, 1833; see Cita, 2009) and part of the Mesozoic limestones of the external zones allowed recognition of a stratigraphic order, otherwise the ‘odd rocks of mountain belts’ (Fischer, 1974) defied an easy interpretation in terms of simple layer‐cake stratigraphy. Furthermore, during the 19th Century, it became apparent that many Alpine sediments were distinct in terms of facies and fauna from those outside the Alps (Elie de Beaumont, 1828; Dufrénoy & Elie de Beaumont, 1848; Suess, 1875); and the difficulties in establishing a reliable stratigraphy in the Alpine belt are reflected, for example, by the bitter controversies on the stages of the Triassic that lasted into the late 19th Century (Mojsisovics et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ancient oceans and continental margins of the Alpine‐Mediterranean Tethys: deciphering clues from Mesozoic pelagic sediments and ophiolites

Bernoulli¹,

Jenkyns

2008

Sedimentology

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In contrast to Northern Europe where, in the 19th Century, a coherent lithostratigraphy and biostratigraphy was established, many of the ‘odd rocks of mountain belts’ (as christened by Alfred G. Fischer) of the Alpine‐Mediterranean region defied an easy interpretation in terms of the simple English layer‐cake stratigraphy mapped by William Smith. However, as early as 1862, Eduard Suess recognized close affinities between Mesozoic faunas of the Alps and those of the Himalaya. Suess also described many such Alpine sedimentary rocks as pelagic (a term discussed by Antoine Lavoisier in the context of sea‐level change), and the results of the Challenger Expedition (1872 to 1876) convinced the Viennese school of geologists of their deep‐water nature. Based on the composition of Jurassic–Cretaceous faunas, Melchior Neumayr postulated the existence of an equatorial ocean, the ‘Central Mediterranean’ which extended from Central America through the Alpine belt to the Himalaya and beyond, an ocean which Suess subsequently named ‘Tethys’. The question of whether or not deep‐sea sediments could occur on land, as deliberately posed by Gustav Steinmann in 1925, became central to the long‐lasting controversy on the permanency of continents and ocean basins. Indeed, the occurrence of deep‐sea deposits in mountain belts required the disappearance of oceanic areas and a mobilist concept of orogeny that was subsequently applied to the Tethyan region by Emile Argand in the wake of the continental drift hypothesis of Alfred Wegener. Implicit in the views of Wegener and Argand is the concept of an oceanic crust fundamentally different from that of the continents. Although ophiolites had been recognized as a special group of rocks in the early 19th Century, Steinmann was the first to interpret the association of (serpentinized) peridotite, ‘diabase’ (dolerite–basalt) and radiolarite (Steinmann Trinity) in a geodynamic context and to consider it as characteristic of the deep ocean. The comparison of Alpine radiolarites with Recent radiolarian oozes deposited below the calcite compensation depth did not remain unchallenged, because of the local association of these siliceous rocks with coarse clastic deposits. However, after the advent of the turbidity‐current hypothesis, these detrital deposits were reinterpreted as submarine mass‐flow deposits. Consequently, such typical Tethyan facies as Rosso Ammonitico, Maiolica/Biancone and black shales, found in close stratigraphical association with the radiolarites, could be interpreted as deposited on deeply submerged continental and/or oceanic crust where they recorded faithfully a range of interdependent palaeoceanographic phenomena: changes in the relative proportion of siliceous, carbonate and organic‐walled biota, in carbonate saturation of sea water, in oceanic circulation and in the impact of orbital‐climatic cycles. The results of the Deep Sea Drilling Project, with its discovery of typical Jurassic and Cretaceous Tethyan facies in the Atlantic Ocean, dramatically confirmed the ...

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Mediterranean Neogene stratigraphy: development and evolution through the centuries

Cited by 10 publications

References 37 publications

The role of the Mediterranean region in the development of sedimentary geology: a historical overview

The role of the Mediterranean region in the development of sedimentary geology: a historical overview

Time-scale construction and periodizing in Big History: From the Eocene-Oligocene boundary to all of the past

Ancient oceans and continental margins of the Alpine‐Mediterranean Tethys: deciphering clues from Mesozoic pelagic sediments and ophiolites

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