Els espeleotemes freàtics del miocè superior i pliocè de les Coves d’Artà (Capdepera, Mallorca)

[eng] This paper presents the results of the investigations carried out on the phreatic overgrowths on speleothems (POS)
existing in Coves d’Artà, a show cave located in the northeastern part of Mallorca Island. At this site, at least seven POS
paleolevels located at elevations ranging between +14.3 and +31.8 m a.s.l. have been recognized so far; they are related to
ancient sea level stands that occurred from the end of Miocene and during the Pliocene times. The radiometric dating of
these speleothems by means of U-Pb method yielded ages that range from 5.86 million years ago (Ma) ‒corresponding to
the onset of the Messinian Salinity Crisis‒ to 2.63 Ma matching the Pliocene-Pleistocene transition. We describe the general
characteristics of these peculiar deposits and provide their absolute ages as well as estimates on the Pliocene global mean
sea level in the Western Mediterranean basin. Specifically, two of the POS deposits from Coves d’Artà dated at 4.39 and
3.27 Ma suggest that during the early Pliocene Climate Optimum (Zanclean) and the mid-Piacenzian Warm Period, the
global sea level was +23.5 m and +16.2 m, respectively, higher than the present-day level.