The deep-water counterpart of the Messinian Lower Evaporites in the Apennine foredeep: The Fanantello section (Northern Apennines, Italy) Vinicio Manzi a, ⁎ , Marco Roveri a , Rocco Gennari a , Adele Bertini b , Ulderico Biffi c , Simona Giunta d , Silvia Maria Iaccarino a , Luca Lanci e , Stefano Lugli f , Alessandra Negri d , Angelo Riva c , Massimo Edoardo Rossi c , Marco Taviani g a Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra - Università di Parma, Via G.P. Usberti, 157/A - 43100, Parma, Italy b Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra - Università di Firenze, Via La Pira 4, 50121 Florence, Italy c ENI S.p.A. Exploration & Production Division - 20097 San Donato Milanese (MI), Italy d Dipartimento di Scienze del Mare, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Via Brecce Bianche, 60131 Ancona, Italy e Facoltà di Scienze Ambientali, Università di Urbino Loc. Crocicchia, 61029 Urbino, Italy f Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra - Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia Largo S. Eufemia, 19 - 41100, Modena, Italy g Istituto di Scienze Marine - CNR, Via Gobetti, 101 - 40129 Bologna, Italy Received 8 October 2006; received in revised form 5 April 2007; accepted 17 April 2007 Abstract A possible deep-water non-evaporitic unit equivalent of the Messinian Lower Evaporites has been recognised in the Northern Apennine foredeep. This unit, whose existence is implicitly admitted in the two-step model of the Mediterranean Messinian salinity crisis is documented here for the first time; it occurs throughout the Apennine foredeep basin below a thick horizon of resedimented gypsum deposits, usually ascribed to the Lower Evaporites. Actually, the Lower Evaporites of the Apennine foredeep basin include both shallow-water, in situ precipitated facies and deep-water, resedimented facies deposited in distinct depocenters. The usually envisaged coeval nature of the two deposits has been recently challenged in several works based on a) physical–stratigraphic considerations about the downbasin correlation of the Messinian erosional surface cutting on top the in situ evaporites with the sharp base of the resedimented evaporites unit and b) the common occurrence of a barren unit below the resedimented evaporites which has no obvious equivalents in pre-evaporitic successions underlying the in situ precipitated evaporites. In this work a multidisciplinary study has been carried out on a 140 m-thick composite section (Fanantello section) to definitely assess the age and palaeoenvironmental characteristics of the unit underlying the resedimented gypsum deposits. The topmost part of the section comprises a 60 m-thick succession of barren euxinic shales falling entirely within a reversed polarity chron and characterised by a) the complete disappearance of Foraminifera, b) the occurrence of high salinity tolerant thecosomatous pteropods (Creseis sp.) c) the abundance peaks of the calcareous nannofossil Sphenolithus abies (interpreted as related to highly stressed likely hyperhaline conditions), d) the appearance of hyperhaline and/or stratified water molecular indicators (gammacerane, b 0.2 pristane/phytane ratio, b 1 n-alkanes odd–even predominance). Based on a multidisciplinary integrated stratigraphic approach this barren interval, is here proposed to be a deeper-water time- equivalent of the in situ primary Lower Evaporites, thus allowing to assess the events connected to the onset and the first phase of the Messinian salinity crisis from a basinal perspective. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 251 (2007) 470 – 499 www.elsevier.com/locate/palaeo ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: vinicio.manzi@unipr.it (V. Manzi). 0031-0182/$ - see front matter © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.palaeo.2007.04.012