WMessina is the capital of the Italian Metropolitan City of Messina. It is the third largest city on the island of Sicily, and the 13th largest city in Italy, with a population of more than 231,000 inhabitants in the city proper and about 650,000 in the Metropolitan City. It is located near the northeast corner of Sicily, at the Strait of Messina, opposite Villa San Giovanni on the mainland, and has close ties with Reggio Calabria. According to Eurostat the FUA of the metropolitan area of Messina has, in 2014, 277,584 inhabitants.
WThe Angostura Formation is a Late Miocene geologic formation of the Borbón Basin in northwestern Ecuador.
WThe Betic Corridor, or North-Betic Strait, was a strait of water connecting the Mediterranean Sea with the Atlantic Ocean that once separated the Iberian plate from the Eurasian plate through the Betic Cordillera. Its closure approximately 5.96 million years ago during the Messinian period of the Miocene epoch, precipitated the Messinian Salinity Crisis, a period when the Mediterranean Sea evaporated partly or completely.
WThe Bocas del Toro Group is a geologic group in Panama. It preserves fossils dating back to the Serravallian to Early Pleistocene period. The group comprises the Swan Cay, Isla Colón, Escudo de Veraguas, Cayo Agua, Shark Hole Point, Nancy Point and Valiente Formations.
WThe Camarinal Sill is the sill separating the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. This threshold is the shallowest seafloor pass between the Iberian Peninsula and Africa. It is located approximately 25 km west of the narrowest section of the Strait of Gibraltar and 20km east of the Espartel Sill, at 35°56′N 5°45′W, at an elevation of −280 m.
WThe Ceja Formation is a Pliocene to Pleistocene geologic formation exposed near Albuquerque, New Mexico.
WThe Cercado Formation is a geologic group in Dominican Republic. The formation comprises siltstones, limestones, claystones, sandstones and conglomerates deposited in a shallow marine to reef environment. The Cercado Formation, unconformably overlying the Baitoa Formation, preserves bivalve, gastropod, decapod and coral fossils dating back to the Late Miocene to Early Pliocene period.
WThe Chagres Formation (Tc) is a geologic formation in the Colón Province of central Panama. The sandstones and siltstones were deposited in a shallow marine environment and preserve fossils dating back to the Middle to Late Miocene period.
WThe Cyprus dwarf elephant is an extinct species that inhabited the island of Cyprus during the Late Pleistocene until around 11,000 years BC. Remains comprise 44 molars, found in the north of the island, seven molars discovered in the south-east, a single measurable femur and a single tusk among very sparse additional bone and tusk fragments. The molars support derivation from the Straight-tusked elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus), that inhabited Europe since 780,000 years ago. The species is presumably derived from the older, larger P. xylophagou from the late Middle Pleistocene who reached the island presumably during a Pleistocene glacial maximum when low sea levels allowed a low probability sea crossing between Cyprus and Asia Minor, most likely between the Karpas peninsula and Adana Province. During subsequent periods of isolation the population adapted within the evolutionary mechanisms of insular dwarfism, which the available sequence of molar fossils confirms to a certain extent. The fully developed Palaeoloxodon cypriotes weighed not more than 200 kg (440 lb) and had a maximum height of 1.40 m (4.59 ft). Whether the species extinction is to be attributed to the arrival of humans on the island remains debated. The species represented a sizable food source, but was easily overcome by contemporary hunter-gatherer populations. An association of dwarf elephant bones with human artefacts is found at the ~13,000 to 11,000 year old Aetokremnos site on the southern coast of the island.
WThe Goliad Formation (Tg) is a geologic formation in Texas. It preserves fossils dating back to the Serravallian to earliest Pliocene stages of the Neogene period, including the gomphothere Blancotherium among many other fossil mammals, reptiles, birds and fish.
WHippopotamus pentlandi is an extinct hippopotamus from Sicily. It arrived during the Pleistocene, in the Messinian salinity crisis. It is the largest of the insular dwarf hippos known from the Pleistocene of the Mediterranean, weighing in at 320 kg. It was present in Sicily until at least the latest Middle Pleistocene around 120 kya.
WThe Huayquerías Formation is a Late Miocene fossiliferous geological formation of the Frontal Cordillera and Cuyo Basin of Argentina. The formation crops out in the central Mendoza Province.
WThe Late Cenozoic Ice Age, or Antarctic Glaciation began 33.9 million years ago at the Eocene-Oligocene Boundary and is ongoing. It is Earth's current ice age or icehouse period. Its beginning is marked by the formation of the Antarctic ice sheets. The Late Cenozoic Ice Age gets its name due to the fact that it covers roughly the last half of Cenozoic era so far.
WThe Letrero Formation is a Late Miocene geologic formation in south-central Ecuador. The formation comprises lacustrine sediments with strong fluvial clastic input and contains siltstones and fine-grained sandstones.
WThe Nancy Point Formation is a geologic formation in Panama. It preserves fossils dating back to the Miocene period.
WThe Old Bank Formation is a geologic formation in Bocas del Toro Province, Panama. It preserves coral fossils dating back to the Messinian period.
WThe Santa Cruz Mudstone is a geologic formation in California. The siliceous organic mudstones of the formation were deposited in deep water and fluvial environments. The formation overlies the Santa Margarita Sandstone and is overlain by the Purisima Formation. The Santa Cruz Mudstone was formerly considered part of the Monterey Formation. The formation preserves bivalve and echinoid fossils as well as vertebrates of Parabalaenoptera baulinensis and Otodus megalodon. The formation dates back to the Late Miocene period.
WThe Sorbas Basin is a sedimentary basin around the town of Sorbas in Almeria Province in south-east Spain. It is believed to have been formed by extension, between two fault-bounded blocks which rotated anti-clockwise to take up the compression resulting from Europe's collision with Africa. The basin is filled with turbidites and evaporites of the Tortonian-Messinian ages of the Miocene Epoch.
WThe Tobabe Formation is a geologic formation in Panama. The conglomerates and sandstones preserve fossils dating back to the Messinian period.
WThe Zanclean flood or Zanclean deluge is a flood theorized to have refilled the Mediterranean Sea 5.33 million years ago. This flooding ended the Messinian salinity crisis and reconnected the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean, although it is possible that even before the flood there were partial connections to the Atlantic Ocean. The reconnection marks the beginning of the Zanclean age.