The Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) is a preindustrial phase of pronounced natural climate variability with a core period from 1000 to 1200 CE. The paper presents a synthesis that integrates palaeotemperature records from the Greater Mediterranean Region encompassing the past 1,500 years based on multiproxy data from 79 published land and marine sites. MCA warming dominated the Western Mediterranean (Iberia, NW Africa) as well as the northern land areas of the Central and Eastern Mediterranean region. MCA cooling prevailed in the Canary Current Upwelling System, southern Levant, and some sea areas of the Central and Eastern Mediterranean. Previous palaeoreconstructions suggest persistent positive Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO+) and North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO+) conditions during the MCA, while the Little Ice Age was dominated by an AMO− and NAO− regime. During the past 150 years, AMO+ conditions are typically associated with warming episodes in the Mediterranean area. A similar relationship appears to have also been established during the MCA as the majority of all Mediterranean land sites experienced warm climate conditions. In contrast, the NAO typically leads to a characteristic west‐east temperature dipole pattern in the basin, as documented for the last decades. During NAO+ conditions the Western Mediterranean is generally warm (and dry), while large parts of the Central and Eastern Mediterranean are cold. Similar trends seem to have been developed during the MCA when the NAO+ regime led to consistent warming in the Western Mediterranean, while a significant number of sites with MCA cooling existed in the Central and Eastern Mediterranean.

The early Silurian in North Africa and Arabia was characterised by widespread deposition of organic-rich shales in palaeo-depressions. The unit represents an important hydrocarbon source rock in the region and can be detected easily in well logs because of strong uranium-related natural radiation. In exposures, however, organic matter is commonly heavily oxidised through weathering so that identification of the unit in the field is difficult. Uranium and pyrite framboids appear to be less vulnerable to weathering and may be used to identify intervals of originally organic-rich shales in exposures. Framboids are discrete spheroidal aggregates of pyrite microcrystallites and their size distribution is thought to be controlled by palaeo-depositional bottom-water redox-conditions. Analyses of fresh Silurian organic-rich shales from a core reveal a close correspondence, for the most part, between total organic carbon, total gamma-ray response, uranium content (as determined by spectral gamma-ray) and framboid parameters. Feasibility tests of the concept have been carried out at two exposures in southern Libya and may form the basis for improved Silurian organic-rich shale distribution maps and more precise age models for Silurian organic-rich depositional phases in northern Gondwana.