As evidence of global climate change continues to accumulate, scientists concentrate on models that might indicate the impacts of such change. Insight comes from examining past global change. One of the largest known global-climate shifts occurred in Middle Miocene time (between about 15.6 and 12.5 million years ago). This dramatic and irreversible shift set the stage for modern oceanic and atmospheric circulation, and for Quaternary bipolar glaciation.

Middle Miocene represents a crucial time interval in the unfolding of our modern ocean-climate system. During this period the Antarctic ice sheets almost reached their present-day dimensions (Kennett & Barker 1990) and the global climate progressed rapidly towards present-day conditions.

The global climate change is preserved in the fossil record, in particular in the temporal and spatial patterns of distribution of planktonic and benthic foraminifera and in their isotopic signatures.

One of the geographic key areas to understand these extraordinary paleoclimatic events is the Mediterranean Sea.

This project is aimed to improve the general knowledge about some specific aspects of the environmental changes underwent by the Mediterranean area during the Middle Miocene. Our study focuses on determining what effects Middle Miocene global climatic changes had on sediments and biota of Eastern Mediterranean. Lower to Middle Miocene sedimentary successions from western Greece provide unique records of isotopic and paleoceanographic events. The proposed initiative should provide important information on the assessment of the impact of future human-induced environmental change.

The research programme is multidisciplinary in nature and is organized into four work-packages:

Workpackage 1: High resolution stratigraphy

Workpackage 2: Tectonic analysis

Workpackage 3: Paleoecology-Paleoclimatology-Ecostratigraphy

Workpackage 4: Paleogeographical reconstruction.

Keywords: Middle Miocene, Eastern Mediterranean, paleoclimatology, stratigraphy