They reveal that climate change in the Messinian caused an unprecedented biological crisis

A scientific expedition in the waters of the Mediterranean discovered a climate change extreme in the Messinian age, about 7,000 million years ago, which determined an unprecedented biological crisis, with changes in the salinity, temperature and oxygenation of its waters.

The analysis and interpretation of trace fossils found in the surveys of an oceanic research program shed new data on the Messinian salinity crisis and reveal extreme paleoenvironmental change.

The research, in which the Spanish University of Granada (UGR) participates with the professor of Paleontology and expert in iconological research Francisco Javier Rodríguez Tovar, confirmed that this climate change affected the salinity, temperature and oxygenation of the waters of the Mediterranean. and caused an unprecedented biological crisis.

Expedition 401 ‘Mediterranean-Atlantic Exchange’ The International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) took place between the months of December and February and collected samples off Southeast Portugal, Huelva (southern Spain) and the Alboran Sea.

He did so to study the evolution of ocean dynamics between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean during the last 8 million years.

The detailed analysis of the surveys made it possible to evaluate their impact on climate and environmental change on both a global and regional scale, with special attention to the so-called ‘Messian salinity crisis’, when the Mediterranean was partially dried.

The research work also allowed us to recognize the existence of cyclical variations associated with paleoclimatic changes and characterize them by variations in the orientation of the Earth’s axis of rotation.

During the expedition, different deep marine sedimentary rocks were recognized that reflect the interaction between different deposition processes related to the moment when the Atlantic began to be influenced by water masses from the Mediterranean.

The data obtained will be able to characterize the beginning of the exchange between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, and evaluate its impact on global climate change.

The research is in its initial phase, with some first results that will be endorsed in future publications by adding surveys stored in Bremen (Germany) that will integrate micropaleontology, ichnology, organic and inorganic geochemistry, physical properties, paleomagnetism or sedimentology.

Furthermore, as it is a hybrid expedition, along with the oceanographic campaign, surveys on land are also scheduled to be carried out.