THE MONTEREY EVENT IN THE MEDITERRANEAN - A RECORD FROM SHELF SEDIMENTS OF MALTA

Oligo-Miocene carbonate platform and shelf sediments outcropping on th e Maltese Islands provide an excellent archive of the paleoceanography of the central Mediterranean. A sequence of shallow water limestones, than shelf limestones, and marls, followed again by shallow water lim estones, reflects drowning of a carbonate platform, the establishment of a shelf environment and, in the late Miocene, renewed progradation and aggradation of shallow water carbonates. The sequence recording th e deepening of the Maltese platform contains several phosphorite hardg rounds and phosphorite pebble beds. These phosphorites were dated with strontium isotopes. Major episodes of phosphogenesis occurred between 25 and 16 Ma, and they are coeval with those phosphorite events repor ted from Florida and North Carolina. A Miocene carbon isotope and oxyg en isotope stratigraphy was established on planktic and benthic forami nifera and on bulk samples. A major carbon isotope excursion with an a mplitude of up to +1 parts per thousand between 18 and 12.5 Ma can be correlated with the globally recognized Monterey carbon isotope excurs ion. This is the first record of this event both in shallow water sedi ments and in the Mediterranean. The carbon isotope excursion precedes an oxygen isotope excursion which also was recognized in deep-sea reco rds. Major episodes of phosphogenesis and platform drowning preceded t he carbon isotope excursion by up to millions of years.