Cyclostratigraphy: Approaches and Case Histories
This volume is derived from an SEPM international workshop entitled Multidisciplinary Approach to Cyclostratigraphy, organized by the editors in May 2001 and held in Sorrento (Naples, Italy). In the Introduction we offer a brief history of how concepts of orbital cyclicity and its effects on the Earth evolved, an appraisal of the present state of research, and an overview of the papers in this volume. The main body of the volume consists of the contributed studies. These include a paper on conceptual and pragmatic approaches to stratification cycles by one of the pioneers of cyclostratigraphy, Walther Schwarzacher, who, in the 1940s, discovered the hierarchical expression of orbital cycles in rocks. The other contributions are specific studies of cyclic sequences, extending from the Quaternary back to the Triassic, covering the range from continental deposits to the deep sea, and employing a wide variety of techniques for extracting and processing the information.
Astrochronology of Late Middle Miocene Mediterranean Sections
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Published:January 01, 2004
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CiteCitation
Silvia Maria Iaccarino, Fabrizio Lirer, Sergio Bonomo, Antonio Caruso, Agata Di Stefano, Enrico Di Stefano, Luca Maria Foresi, Roberto Mazzei, Gianfranco Salvatorini, Mario Sprovieri, Rodolfo Sprovieri, Elena Turco, 2004. "Astrochronology of Late Middle Miocene Mediterranean Sections", Cyclostratigraphy: Approaches and Case Histories, Bruno D’Argenio, Alfred G. Fischer, Isabella Premoli Silva, Helmut Weissert, Vittoria Ferreri
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Abstract
High-resolution cyclostratigraphy and calcareous plankton astrobiochronology have been obtained from the latest Langhian to the earliest Tortonian of the Mediterranean. The investigated areas (Malta, Tremiti, and Sicily) are located in different geological settings, and the three studied sections show different cyclicity. Direct correlation between the Laskar 90(1.1) solution of the insolation curve and the sedimentary cycle pattern occurring in the investigated sections showed that all the sedimentary cycles are forced dominantly by Milankovitch periodicity. This forcing is also reflected in the climate-sensitive data (CaCO3 content, and the relative abundance of the planktonic foraminifer Globigerinoides) as shown by the application of spectral and filtering analyses.
The calibration provided astronomical ages for all the sedimentary cycles and bioevents recorded in the sections. In particular, an age of 13.59 Ma was obtained for the extinction level of Sphenolithus heteromorphus, which is the best event approximating the Langhian-Serravallian boundary and an age of 10.55 Ma for the first regular occurrence of Neogloboquadrina acostaensis, the event that better approximates the Serravallian-Tortonian boundary in the Tortonian type section.
