The Roussillon Basin is a non-silled Miocene sedimentary basin filling a late Oligocene-early Miocene graben. The basin was intensively impacted by the Messinian fluvial erosion, as evidenced in exposed sections, in seismic profiles and in deep boreholes drilled for hydrocarbon exploration. As the basin was open to the Mediterranean Sea, the huge drop in sea level at the peak of the Messinian Salinity Crisis is clearly recorded, along with the subsequent sudden marine reflooding and the resulting prograding sedimentary filling, particularly in Gilbert-type fan deltas. Here, the Messinian Erosional Surface (MES) is accurately mapped in a high-resolution document, which corrects the confusion resulting from the set of 1:50,000 scale regional maps. Aim of the 3D reconstruction of the MES is to modernize geological mapping, a crucial challenge for Mediterranean and peripheral areas. Thanks to a reliable chronostratigraphy provided by planktonic foraminifers, calcareous nannofossils, micro- and macro-mammal remains, paleomagnetism and a Be-10 cosmogenic nuclide-derived study, our reconstruction is one of the most comprehensive models of changes in sea level from 6 to 3 Ma. After the marine reflooding of the Mediterranean Basin at 5.46 Ma, the fluctuations in sea level recorded in the Roussillon Basin were forced by global changes. Following reflooding, the Prades large olistostrome collapsed prepared by the previous exhumation along the Canigou fault. The olistostrome is a good example of a local accident resulting from Messinian events. The exceptional changes in sea level at the peak of the Messinian Salinity Crisis deeply marked the Roussillon Basin, momentarily overprinting the Pyrenean orogenesis. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The Saumane-Venasque compound palaeovalley succession accumulated in a strongly tide-influenced embayment or estuary. Warm-temperate normal marine to brackish conditions led to deposition of extensive cross-bedded biofragmental calcarenites. Echinoids, bryozoans, coralline algae, barnacles and benthic foraminifera were produced in seagrass meadows, on rocky substrates colonized by macroalgae and within subaqueous dune fields. There are two sequences, S1 and S2, the first of which contains three high-frequency sequences (S1a, S1b and S1c). Sequence 1 is largely confined to the palaeovalley with its upper part covering interfluves. Each of these has a similar upward succession of deposits that includes: (i) a basal erosional surface that is bored and glauconitized; (ii) a discontinuous lagoonal lime mudstone or wackestone; (iii) a thin conglomerate generated by tidal ravinement; (iv) a transgressive systems tract series of cross-bedded calcarenites; (v) a maximum flooding interval of argillaceous, muddy quartzose, open-marine limestones; and (vi) a thin highstand systems tract of fine-grained calcarenite. Tidal currents during stages S1a, S1b and S1c were accentuated by the constricted valley topography, whereas basin-scale factors enhanced tidal currents during the deposition of S2. The upper part of the succession in all but S1c has been removed by later erosion. There is an overall upward temporal change with quartz, barnacles, encrusting corallines and epifaunal echinoids decreasing but bryozoans, articulated corallines and infaunal echinoids increasing. This trend is interpreted to be the result of changing oceanographic conditions as the valley was filled, bathymetric relief was reduced, rocky substrates were replaced as carbonate factories by seagrass meadows and subaqueous dunes, and the setting became progressively less confined and more open marine. These limestones are characteristic of a suite of similar cool-water calcareous sand bodies in environments with little siliciclastic or fresh water input during times of high-amplitude sea-level change wherein complex inboard antecedent topography was flooded by a rising ocean.

We document an example of a cool-water carbonate deposit interpreted as a flood-tidal delta formed during sealevel fall in the Uzes basin (French Miocene foreland basin). In the Miocene it was a peripheral basin connected to the open sea by a narrow, 15-km-long seaway. The studied Uzes Formation is a 50-m-thick tidal bioclastic carbonate body, formed at the junction between the Uzes basin and the seaway. It is composed dominantly of rhodalgal packstones that are interpreted to have been produced inside the basin. However, most of the deposit was built out by bidirectional hydraulic dunes, suggesting that accumulation of carbonate grains was not controlled by production but rather by tidal currents. The deposit is thickest and coarsest grained, and exhibits the larger dunes at the inlet of the seaway, where currents are expected to have been fastest. The deposit is thinner, finer-grained, and more bioturbated away from the inlet toward the basin; that is interpreted as a result of a decrease of current velocity due to flow expansion. The main deposit exhibits a general upward increase in thickness and grain size of cross-beds, together with a decrease of faunal diversity (from bivalve-rich to rhodalgal facies), consistent with progressive tidal flow acceleration in the seaway resulting from sea-level fall. Lime mud is pervasive in the matrix of even the highest-energy facies. This suggests that one cannot draw any average correlation between permeability and architecture of the deposit. Also, this could favor the observed early marine diagenesis of the deposit and give it a high preservation potential in the stratigraphic record.

An integrated study combining facies analysis, multiple group biostratigraphy, identification of depositional sequences and mapping has been conducted on the Miocene Molasse Basin of the external Alps (southeastern France). The filling of the basin is described as resulting from a succession of fluvial incisions subsequently filled during marine transgressions. The major incision is dated as Latest Burdigalian and the major transgression as Langhian. This revised interpretation of the Miocene physiographic evolution of the Molasse Basin implies a re-examination of previous stratigraphic correlations within the basin.

The Rhodanian-Provencal Basin is the southernmost part of the Peri-Alpine Seaway developed during the Miocene from Austria to the Mediterranean Sea (Fig. 1). This basin is located in a peripheral or external domain of the Western Alps foreland basin. Flexural subsidence related to alpine thrust loading provides accomodation space.