The Oligocene and Miocene Epochs comprise the most important phases in the Cenozoic global cooling that led from a greenhouse to an icehouse Earth.Recent major advances in the understanding and time-resolution of climate events taking place at this time, as well as the proliferation of studies on Oligocene and Miocene shallow-water/neritic carbonate systems, invite us to re-evaluate the significance of these carbonate systems in the context of changes in climate and Earth surface processes. Carbonate systems, because of a wide dependence on the ecological requirements of organisms producing the sediment, are sensitive recorders of changes in environmental conditions on the Earth surface.The papers included in this Special Publication address the dynamic evolution of carbonate systems deposited during the Oligocene and Miocene in the context on climatic and Earth surfaces processes focusing on climatic trends and controls over deposition; temporal changes in carbonate producers and palaeoecology; carbonate terminology; facies; processes and environmental parameters (including water temperature and production depth profiles); carbonate producers and their spatial and temporal variability; and tectonic controls over architecture.
Author(s): Maria Mutti, Werner E. Piller, Christian Betzler
Edition: 1
Year: 2010
Language: English
Pages: 312
Carbonate Systems During the Oligocene–Miocene Climatic Transition......Page 2
Contents......Page 8
Miocene carbonate systems: an introduction......Page 10
A synthesis of Late Oligocene through Miocene deep sea temperatures as inferred from foraminiferal Mg/Ca ratios......Page 16
Latitudinal trends in Cenozoic reef patterns and their relationship to climate......Page 32
Carbonate grain associations: their use and environmental significance, a brief review......Page 50
Temperate and tropical carbonate-sedimentation episodes in the Neogene Betic basins (southern Spain) linked to climatic oscillations and changes in Atlantic-Mediterranean connections: constraints from isotopic data......Page 64
Facies models and geometries of the Ragusa Platform (SE Sicily, Italy) near the Serravallian–Tortonian boundary......Page 86
The sensitivity of a tropical foramol-rhodalgal carbonate ramp to relative sea-level change: Miocene of the central Apennines, Italy......Page 104
Facies and sequence architecture of a tropical foramol-rhodalgal carbonate ramp: Miocene of the central Apennines (Italy)......Page 122
Facies and stratigraphic architecture of a Miocene warm-temperate to tropical fault-block carbonate platform, Sardinia (Central Mediterranean Sea)......Page 144
Coralline algae, oysters and echinoids – a liaison in rhodolith formation from the Burdigalian of the Latium-Abruzzi Platform (Italy)......Page 164
Palaeoenvironmental significance of Oligocene–Miocene coralline red algae – a review......Page 180
Molluscs as a major part of subtropical shallow-water carbonate production – an example from a Middle Miocene oolite shoal (Upper Serravallian, Austria)......Page 198
Echinoderms and Oligo-Miocene carbonate systems: potential applications in sedimentology and environmental reconstruction......Page 216
Coral diversity and temperature: a palaeoclimatic perspective for the Oligo-Miocene of the Mediterranean region......Page 244
Late Oligocene to Miocene reef formation on Kita-daito-jima, northern Philippine Sea......Page 260
Carbonate production in rift basins: models for platform inception, growth and dismantling, and for shelf to basin sediment transport, Miocene Sardinia Rift Basin, Italy......Page 272
Index......Page 298
