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Causes and consequences of the Messinian salinity crisis

Nature Reviews Earth & Environment (2024)Cite this article

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Abstract

Salt giants are massive salt deposits (hundreds of metres thick) that form during the evaporation of semi-enclosed seas. The drivers of salt giant formation and their feedbacks on global and regional environmental change remain debated. In this Review, we summarize the boundary conditions, causes and consequences of the Mediterranean Messinian salinity crisis (MSC; 5.97–5.33 million years ago). Salt giant formation is more complex than the simple evaporation of an enclosed sea. Instead, the tectonic setting of an evaporative basin largely determines the timing and mode of salt formation, with superimposed impacts of orbital-scale climate and sea-level fluctuations. These drivers triggered precipitation of carbonates, gypsum, halite and bittern salts, with well-defined orbital cyclicities in carbonate and gypsum phases. Removal of Ca2+ during salt giant deposition decouples the oceanic Ca2+ and HCO3− sinks, causing reduced CaCO3 burial and, consequently, increased ocean pH, lower atmospheric partial pressure of CO2, and global cooling. Salt giants, which reflect a net evaporite-ion extraction of ~7–10% from oceans and persist over million-year timescales, could therefore be an important climate driver but are currently underconsidered in long-term carbon cycle models. Future research should use advanced hydrogeochemical models of water–ocean exchange to further explore interactions between salt giants and environmental change.

Key points

  • Giant salt deposits (gypsum and halite) formed in the Mediterranean during the Messinian salinity crisis (MSC), and their timing and mode depended on tectonic impacts on the evaporative basin.

  • Geodynamic and eustatic sea-level forcing are crucial for initiating and terminating salt giant formation with a subsidiary role for regional climate.

  • The main controls on evaporitic mineral precipitation are the magnitude of freshwater deficit and the extent to which water exchange between basin and ocean is limited.

  • Evaluation of an updated sea-level record for the time interval 6.4 to 5.0 million years ago demonstrates that sea level is a viable driver of the prominent MSC sedimentary cyclicity, in addition to orbital variation in the freshwater budget.

  • The formation and dissolution of giant calcium sulfate (gypsum and anhydrite) deposits can have global consequences as an episodic driver of carbon cycle changes. Oceanic Ca2+ removal via CaSO4 deposition decouples the oceanic Ca2+ and HCO3− sinks, causing a decrease in CaCO3 burial and, consequently, increased ocean pH, lower atmospheric partial pressure of CO2, and global cooling.

  • Most biogeochemical models assume that evaporite precipitation and weathering are balanced over timescales of more than 100 kyr. However, salt giants can reflect about a 7–10% net extraction of evaporite ions from ocean water that persists over million-year timescales, suggesting that current carbon cycle models could be missing an important long-term climate driver.

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Fig. 1: Mediterranean MSC evaporite stages.
Fig. 2: Messinian salinity crisis stratigraphy in basinal settings.
Fig. 3: Global benthic foraminiferal oxygen and carbon isotope records correlated to the main phases of the Messinian salinity crisis.
Fig. 4: Sea-level reconstruction with sill-depth scenarios for the Messinian salinity crisis.
Fig. 5: Geodynamic context of the Messinian salinity crisis.
Fig. 6: Post-Messinian salinity crisis removal of Messinian salts to the Atlantic, following an abrupt refilling event.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the project SALTGIANT-Understanding the Mediterranean Salt Giant, funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme (Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement no. 765256). It also contributes to Australian Research Council projects FL120100050, DP2000101157 (E.J.R.), and DP190100874 (A.P.R.). D.V.P. acknowledges project PNRR C9-I8 ‘Multiproxy reconstruction of Eurasian Megalakes, connectivity and isolation patterns during Neogene-Quaternary times’, code 97/15.11.2022, contract no. 760115/23.05.2023 and the project ‘Impact of sea-level rise on anoxic basins: Paratethys vs. Black Sea’ (grant Veni.212.136) of the research Talent programme– Veni which is financed by the Dutch Research Council (NWO).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Wout Krijgsman & Dan V. Palcu

  2. Ocean and Earth Science, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK

    Eelco J. Rohling

  3. National Institute of Marine Geology and Geo-ecology, GeoEcoMar, Bucharest, Romania

    Dan V. Palcu

  4. Department of Hydrogeology, University of Corsica Pasquale Paoli, Corte, France

    Fadl Raad

  5. Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

    Udara Amarathunga & Andrew P. Roberts

  6. BRIDGE, School of Geographical Sciences and Cabot Institute, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

    Rachel Flecker

  7. Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Rome, Italy

    Fabio Florindo

  8. Department of Geology, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain

    Francisco J. Sierro

  9. Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP), Université Paris Cité, CNRS, Paris, France

    Giovanni Aloisi

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All authors contributed to the content, discussion, writing and editing of the paper. D.V.P., F.R., G.A., F.J.S., E.J.R. and U.A. constructed the figures.

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Krijgsman, W., Rohling, E.J., Palcu, D.V. et al. Causes and consequences of the Messinian salinity crisis. Nat Rev Earth Environ (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-024-00533-1

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