Résumé
Our observations in numerous areas of the Mediterranean indicate that microbial building activity is an important sedimentary process in the littoral environments during Messinian times. Intra-reefal crusts, stromatolitic and thrombolitic domes and mud-mounds are the main microbial buildings recorded in the Messinian carbonate platforms. Microbial buildings are identified in open-sea environment as in restricted shallow-water environment. They developed into most of sedimentary units of the platforms, mainly associated with coral reefs or tidal deposits. The role of the microbian ecosystems should be reinvestigated for Cainozoic times as it was previously underestimated.