Lago Mare episodes around the Messinian–Zanclean boundary in the deep southwestern Mediterranean

•Post-salinity crisis Mediterranean marine reflooding preceded the Zanclean GSSP.•Influxes of Paratethyan dinoflagellate cysts mark Messinian–Zanclean Lago Mare events.•No change towards moister climate characterizes the Lago Mare events.•Upper evaporites (UU) deposited in marine environment near palaeoshoreline.

We present a high-resolution analysis of planktonic foraminifers, calcareous nannofossils, ostracods, dinoflagellate cysts and pollen grains in four sequences from DSDP–ODP holes in the southwestern Mediterranean Alboran and Balearic basins (976B, 977A, 978A and 134B) encompassing the previously defined Messinian–Zanclean boundary.The study focuses on (1) the marine reflooding, which closed the Messinian Salinity Crisis prior to the Zanclean GSSP; (2) the nature of the Lago Mare in the deep basins (indicated by Paratethyan dinoflagellate cysts), which appears to comprise several Paratethyan influxes without climatic control; and (3) the depositional context of the youngest Messinian evaporites which accumulated in a marine environment relatively close to the palaeoshoreline.Isolation of the Aegean Basin during the paroxysmic second step of the crisis is considered to have stored Paratethyan waters, which may then have poured into the Mediterranean central basins after deposition of the evaporitic sequence.