The upper Messinian to lower Zanclean succession of the Crotone Basin, a forearc basin located along the
Ionian side of the Calabrian Arc (southern Italy), consists of a turbidite-bearing succession (the Petilia
Policastro Formation) overlying evaporites and abruptly passing upward into coarse-grained continental
deposits (the Carvane Conglomerate), which are in turn overlain by distal shelf to slope mudstones (the
Cavalieri Marl). The marked environmental changes from subaqueous to continental and vice versa
documented by the studied succession are inferred to be the expression of basin-scale tectonics, leading
to uplift and exposure, superposed on the Mediterranean-scale base-level rise that followed the acme of
the Messinian Salinity Crisis. The upper part of the succession documents a transgressive trend probably
initiated within the Carvane Conglomerate, and further testified by the presence of a ravinement surface
marked by a transgressive lag at the base of the Zanclean Cavalieri Marl, pointing to a non-catastrophic
deepening occurred near the end of the Messinian.
