Zanclean

From Ancient Greek Ζάγκλη (Zánklē), the name originally given to the city of Messina, Sicily, by its ancient Greek founders. (Compare Messinian, the preceding age.)

Zanclean

1. (geology, paleontology) A geological subdivision, the earliest age of the Pliocene epoch.
   • 1881, "A. W. W.", Notices of Memoirs: I.—Tertiary Geology of the Reggiano (Calabria), in Henry Woodward (editor), Geological Magazine, New Series, Decade 2, Volume 8, Trübner & Co., page 324,

     The Pliocene is found at a much greater elevation than any of the other Tertiary series, reaching in the Zanclean to 1200 mètres above the sea, and as the conditions of deposition were quite different here from those which obtained in north Italy, the series in one part of the peninsula forms a complement to those in the other.

   • 1989, Silvia Iaccarino, “8: Mediterranean Miocene and Pliocene planktic foraminifera”, in Hans M. Bolli, John B. Saunders, Katharina Perch-Nielsen, editors, Plankton Stratigraphy, Volume 1, Cambridge University Press, page 288:

     In the first case the Early Pliocene coincides with the Zanclean and its upper boundary with the last occurrence of Globorotalia margaritae (Mazzei et al., 1978).

   • 2003, Edward J. Petuch, Cenozoic Seas: The View From Eastern North America, page 135:

     Warmer climates and sea level rises did not occur until the early Zanclean Pliocene (4.5 million years).

• Zanclean flood