Messinian

The Messinian is in the geologic timescale the last age or uppermost stage of the Miocene.

The Messinian overlaps the Turolian European Land Mammal Mega Zone (more precisely MN 12 and 13) and the Pontian Central European Paratethys Stage.

It also overlaps the late Huayquerian and early Montehermosan South American Land Mammal Ages, and falls inside the more extensive Hemphillian North American Land Mammal Age.

[6] Its name comes from the Italian city of Messina on Sicily, where the Messinian evaporite deposit is of the same age.

The base of the Messinian is at the first appearance of the planktonic foram species Globorotalia conomiozea and is stratigraphically in the middle of magnetic chronozone C3Br.1r.

Messinian gypsum and clay deposits in the Sorbas basin near Sorbas , southern Spain . Evaporite deposits of Messinian age are common throughout the Mediterranean .