| Zanclean | |
| Color: | Zanclean |
| Time Start: | 5.333 |
| Time End: | 3.600 |
| Caption Map: | A map of the world 5 million years ago during the Zanclean Age. |
| Image Art: | File:Etapa4muda.jpg |
| Caption Art: | Artistic interpretation of the Mediterranean's Zanclean flood 5.3 million years ago |
| Timeline: | Neogene |
| Formerly Part Of: | Tertiary Period/System |
| Name Formality: | Formal |
| Celestial Body: | earth |
| Usage: | Global (ICS) |
| Timescales Used: | ICS Time Scale |
| Chrono Unit: | Age |
| Strat Unit: | Stage |
| Timespan Formality: | Formal |
| Lower Boundary Def: | Base of the Thvera magnetic event (C3n.4n), which is only 96 ka (5 precession cycles) younger than the GSSP |
| Lower Gssp Location: | Heraclea Minoa section, Heraclea Minoa, Cattolica Eraclea, Sicily, Italy |
| Lower Gssp Accept Date: | 2000[1] |
| Upper Boundary Def: | Base of Gauss/Gilbert (C2An/C2Ar) magnetic reversal |
| Upper Gssp Location: | Punta Piccola Section, Porto Empedocle, Sicily, Italy |
| Upper Gssp Accept Date: | January 1997[2] |
The Zanclean is the lowest stage or earliest age on the geologic time scale of the Pliocene. It spans the time between 5.332 ± 0.005 Ma (million years ago) and 3.6 ± 0.005 Ma. It is preceded by the Messinian Age of the Miocene Epoch, and followed by the Piacenzian Age.
The Zanclean can be correlated with regionally used stages, such as the Opoitian of New Zealand,[3] and the Tabianian or Dacian of Central Europe. It also corresponds to the late Hemphillian to mid-Blancan North American Land Mammal Ages. In California, the Zanclean roughly corresponds to the middle part of the Delmontian stage.[4]
The Zanclean Stage was introduced by Giuseppe Seguenza in 1868. It is named after Zancle, the pre-Roman name for the Italian city of Messina on Sicily.
The base of the Zanclean (and the Pliocene Series) lies with the top of magnetic chronozone Cr3 (about 100,000 years before the Thvera normal subchronozone C3n.4n). The base is also close to the extinction level of the calcareous nanoplankton species Triquetrorhabdulus rugosus (the base of biozone CN10b) and the first appearance of nanoplankton Ceratolithus acutus. The GSSP for the Zanclean is in the vicinity of the ruins of the ancient city of Heraclea Minoa on Sicily, Italy.[1]
The top of the Zanclean Stage (the base of the Piacenzian Stage) is at the base of magnetic chronozone C2An (the base of the Gauss chronozone and at the extinction of the planktonic forams Globorotalia margaritae and Pulleniatina primalis.
