Mediterranean Mega Flood

This story is at https://phys.org/print438943372.html … a study by an international team have found evidence of a mega flood during the Zanclean Period in which water from the Atlantic poured back into the Mediterranean basin and brought an end to the Messinian Salinity Crisis (5 million years ago). The study was led by Aaron Micallef of the University of Malta and is published in Scientific Reports journal (Feb 2018). The arguments revolve around bore hole data off Sicily, sediments buried in the sub surface characterised as chaotic. This large mass of sediment was rapidly eroded and transported by a flood of water via the Strait of Sicily – once the western basin had been filled with Atlantic water (via the Strait of Gibraltar). These sediments also occur over a layer of salts mainstream allege were caused by dessication (a drying up of the Mediterranean). The laying down of salt layers, sometimes many metres thick, is one of the oddities and mysteries of geology. The idea has been challenged simply on the basis of the depth of some of the deposits.