This study is based on the anal y sis of the sedimentology and the fos sil as sem blages of Pleis to cene de pos its in East ern Tu nisia. It uses dif fer ent fauna as sem blages to help in fer palaeoenvironments and in par tic u lar dis cusses the im por tance of the dis tri bu tion of Persististrombus latus, es pe cially as re gards MIS 5e de pos its around the Med i ter ra nean Ba sin. The stratigraphic suc ces sion has been di vided into two main units. The lower unit is quartz-rich. Its basal part con tains a ma rine fauna that in cludes well-pre served bi valves, gas tro pods, echinoids and cirripedes dom i nated by Acanthocardia, Cerastoderma, Parvicardium, Arca, Donax, Glycymeris, Loripes, Tellina and Cerithium. This fauna rep re sents a typ i cal as so ci ation/biocenosis typ i cally de vel oped in a shel tered bay, of mod er ate to low wave/cur rent ac tion and rapid post-mor tem burial. The up per unit is car bon ate-dom i nated. Its basal part also con tains a rich ma rine fauna that in cludes the ex tant trop i cal West Af ri can spe cies Persististrombus latus. The oc cur rence of Persististrombus latus in this unit com pared to its pres ence in the whole Med i ter ra nean ba sin in the Late Pleis to cene leads us to ques tion its im por tance in the in ter pre ta tion of cli mate warming dur ing the Late Pleis to cene, and to sug gest its At lan tic or i gin.Key words: MIS 5 and MIS 7, Tu ni sia, malacofauna, palaeo ec ol ogy, Persististrombus latus, palaeoclimate.
INTRODUCTIONPleis to cene de pos its of the east ern coast of Tu ni sia cor re lative to ma rine iso tope stage (MIS) 5, MIS 7 and MIS 9 have been the sub ject of sev eral stud ies (Allemand-Mar tin, 1923, 1924Castany, 1954Castany, , 1955Castany, , 1956Barrot, 1972;Paskoff and Sanlaville, 1976, 1978, 1983Oueslati, 1980;Oueslati et al., 1982;Blanc, 1982;Bernat et al., 1985;Miller et al., 1986;Mahmoudi, 1986Mahmoudi, , 1988Oueslati, 1994; Jedoui, 2000; Jedoui et al., 2001 Jedoui et al., , 2002Jedoui et al., , 2003Bouaziz et al., 2003;Le Guern, 2005;Chakroun et al., 2005Chakroun et al., , 2009a Chakroun et al., , b, 2016Chakroun, 2006;Mauz et al., 2009;Mejri et al., 2012). This suc ces sion, con tain ing a ma rine fauna, has been doc u mented as transgressive. In eastern Tu ni sia, it is un der lain by a ma jor un con formity. It can di rectly over lie con ti nen tal as well as ma rine Mio cene de pos its or the ma rine Plio cene, or even con ti nen tal Villafranchian de pos its.In the pres ent work we de tail the fos sil con tent of the MIS 5e and MIS 7 de pos its out crop ping along the Cap Bon Pen in sula and far ther to wards the south in the Hergla area. The fau nal species dis tri bu tion and taphonomy are an a lysed. The main eco log ical char ac ter is tics of the dif fer ent in ver te brate spe cies com mu nities help to re con struct their depositional en vi ron ments or biotopes de vel oped along the east ern coast of Tu ni sia.
MATERIAL AND METHODSAlong the east ern Tu ni sian coast, from the Cap Bon to Hergla ar eas, the P...