Mediterranean Sea Filled in Less Than Two Years: Study 9 December 2009

Mediterranean Sea filled in less than two years: study 9 December 2009

years, our results suggest that 90 percent of the water was transferred in a short period ranging from a few months to two years."

Previous studies have suggested that it could have taken between 10 and several thousands of years to fill the Mediterranean, according to the depth of the Gilbraltar strait.

Scientists led by Daniel Garcia-Castellanos from Barcelona's Institute of Earth Sciences Jaume A picture shows Tel Aviv's sea front promenade on the Almera used borehole and seismic data to reveal a Israeli Mediterranean coastline in March 2009. The 200-kilometre-long (125-mile) channel across the Mediterranean Sea was mostly filled in less than two Gibraltar strait that was carved out by the years in a dramatic flood around 5.33 million years ago floodwaters, Nature said. in which water poured in from the Atlantic, according to a study published Wednesday. They used an incision model to estimate the duration of the flood and reach their conclusions.

"We do not envisage a waterfall, as is often The Mediterranean Sea was mostly filled in less represented: instead the geophysical data suggests than two years in a dramatic flood around 5.33 a huge ramp, several kilometres wide, descending million years ago in which water poured in from the from the Atlantic to the dry Mediterranean...," the Atlantic, according to a study published scientists said. Wednesday. "This extremely abrupt flood may have involved Sea water flooded in through the Strait of Gibraltar peak rates of sea level rise in the Mediterranean of at a rate three times the current flow of the more than 10 metres a day," they said. Amazon River, said the report publish by the scientific journal Nature. Garcia-Castellanos told AFP that even though the water flowed into the Mediterranean Sea at huge About 5.6 million years ago the Mediterranean Sea speeds it was at a relatively small angle of between had became disconnected from the world's oceans one and four percent. and mostly dried up by evaporation with its largely saline surface between 1,500 and 2,700 metres The incision channel started tens of kilometres below sea level, the study said. inside the Atlantic and seemed to slope gradually towards the centre of the Alboran Sea, in the "The Atlantic waters found a way through the western Mediterranean. present Gibraltar Strait and rapidly refilled the Mediterranean 5.33 million years ago in an event "We also know that the velocity of the water flow known as the Zanclean flood," it said. must have been more than 300 kilometres an hour," he said. "Although the flood started at low water discharges that may have lasted for up to several thousand The abruptness of the flood, which may have been

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triggered mainly by tectonic subsidence, appeared to have been "catastrophic" because of its effect on the Mediterranean ecosystem and the climate, the paper said.

Studies of sediments had shown a marked changed between the period of salinity, when there was little marine animal life, and the one immediately afterwards which was characterised by a great number of species, it said.

APA citation: Mediterranean Sea filled in less than two years: study (2009, December 9) retrieved 2 October 2021 from https://phys.org/news/2009-12-mediterranean-sea-years.html

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