A new study provides strong evidence that the refilling of the Mediterranean Sea involved a collossal megaflood. It brought an end to the period known as the Messenian Salinity Crisis. This is thought to involve the Mediterranean basin losing its water, and marine connection to the Atlantic, leaving behind, after evaporation, extensive salt flats. The Atlantic, for some reason, was not replenishing water from the ocean outside the basin. See https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/01/250121125808.htm …
The Zanclean Megaflood ended the salinity crisis, which is thought to have lasted around 600,000 years. This, in itself, is problematical. It is a uniformitarian number and may mask a surprise in itself. The research paper arises as a result of a team of scientists that included marine specialists from Southampton University. They have identified a series of geological features around SE Sicily. These point to a massive flooding event. Discharge rates, they say, were extremely high. Flow velocities also. This is surprisng as until recently it was thought the Mediterranean waters re-entered the basin at a gradual uniformitarian rate – over a period of 10,000 years. That idea was first challenged in 2009 – but had held the roost for decades. At the time an erosion channel was discovered stretching from the Gulf of Cadiz to the Albarian Sea. The finding pointed to a massive flood that took place within 2 to 16 years. A clearly catastrophic event.
The new study – see https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01972-w … provides a fully comprehensive picture of what was found. They investighated over 300 asymmetric streamlined ridges in a corridor across the Sicily Sill. This is a submerged land bridge that once separated the western from the eastern Mediterranean. The morphology of the ridge is compatible with flooding on a high scale – turbulent water flow is predominately towards the NE. An interesting observation.