Definition
The Messinian was introduced by Swiss stratigrapher Karl Mayer-Eymar in 1867. 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. The GSSP for the Messinian is located in a section at Oued Akrech, near the Moroccan capital Rabat.
The top of the Messinian (the base of the Zanclean stage and Pliocene series) lies with the top of magnetic chronozone Cr3 (about 100.000 years before the Thvera normal subchronozone C3n.4n). The base is also close to the extinction level of the calcareous nanoplankton species Triquetrorhabdulus rugosus (the base of biozone CN10b) and the first appearance of nannoplankton Ceratolithus acutus.
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