Deep Marine Record from Sentinelle Valley (Sardinia Channel): Integrated Stratigraphy of a Key Site for Western Mediterranean Paleoceanographic and Geological Reconstruction

Biotic, petrophysical, paleomagnetic proxies combined with 14C AMS data allowed us to produce, for deep marine record of Sentinelle Valley (Sardinia Channel), a detailed integrated stratigraphic time-framework for the last 80 kyr. Major planktonic foraminiferal changes in quantitative distribution of selected climate sensitive species allowed the identification of 10 eco-biozones and the main climatic global events (Sapropel S1, Younger Dryas, Greenland Isotope Interstadial 1, Greenland Isotope Stadial 2, Heinrich events H1-H6). An accurate age-depth profile has been proposed for the studied record which spans between 2 and 83 kyr cal. BP. The adopted age model was successively confirmed by comparing the colour reflectance data of the studied record with the astronomically tuned deep marine record ODP-Site 964 from the Ionian Sea. Three turbidite event layers were chronologically constrained within the relative low stand and lowering sea level phases associated to the MIS 4 and MIS 3.