Mediterranean Pliocene events in the Salento geological record.

During the Pliocene age, the past Mediterranean sea became similar to the present and the European and African continents progressively acquired their presentday contours. The species turnover accelerated as high latitude temperatures dropped, the ice sheets gathered and the sea circulation changed their form patterns. In the lower Pliocene, the Salento peninsula was the central sector of an isolated carbonate platform far from the continent. On the contrary, at the beginning of the Quaternary age the platform was just connected to the Apennines Chain by means of a shallow interposed basin (the Bradanic Trough). These paleoenvironmental and paleogeographic changes, occurred between 5.3 and 1.6 My, have been the local setting reorganisation in a context of large-scale Mediterranean evolution marked by a number of geological events. The Salento Pliocene Series is represented by the follow lithological facies: (1) chaotic assemblage, (2) marlstones, (3) glauconitic siltstones, (4) phosphatized calcirudite, (5) calcarenites and limestones containing, at the top, the first appearance of Arctica islandica. They can be respectively linked to: (1) the late Messinian Mediterranean drawdown, (2) the deepest paleo-depth of the early Pliocene inundation, (3) a lower-middle Pliocene stage of very low rate of sedimentation, (4) the about 2.5 My cooling phase as well as southern Apennines middle-upper Pliocene tectonic strain, and (5) the Neogene/Quaternary boundary arrival of the "northern guests".