Million years ago, the Mediterranean evaporated. Later, it may have been buried back by the largest floods experienced on earth.
The international researcher team has found a new evidence to support the Zan Clean Flood. The Zan Clean Flood is a theory that the Mediterranean Sea of ​​the Mediterranean was changed to a dry and salty scenery due to the Messinian salt crisis. Detailed described in the article on December 28 study Published in a magazine Communication Earth and EnvironmentResearchers can provide the most broad survey of the ancient giant floods that have been known so far, combining newly specified geological features in Sicily with global data and computer models. There is sex.
“The Zan Clean Flood is a natural phenomenon that is awe -inspiring, and its flow and flow seemed to be smaller than any other floods known in the history of the global history,” he said. Aaron Michalev of the research institute said at the university. Southampton statement。 “Our research provides the most persuasive evidence of this unusual event.”
The Mediterranean Sea crisis was separated from the Atlantic Sea between 5.97 million and 5.33 million years ago, evaporating, and formed vast salt and saline. Scientists had previously stated that the Mediterranean Basin was gradually replenished in 10,000 years. However, 2009 Discover an eroding groove The water area, which spreads from Cadis Bay on the Atlantic coast of Spain to the Alvoran Sea in the east of Gibraltar, has opposed the theory and instead suggests a single flood phenomenon to scientists.
“This flood was thought to have been caused by the Atlantic Ocean crossed through the late Messinia Gektosis near the current Gibraltar Strait, and then filled the western part of the Mediterranean, and then crossed the Sicily in the Sicily. Researchers overflowed and filled the eastern Mediterranean. ” New research. Studies have stated that the floods lasted 2 to 16 years, and 24-3.5 billion -foot (680 to 100 million cubes) per second had leaked.
The research team has identified more than 300 or more asymmetric ridge near Sicily Sil, a land bridge in the water, which once separated the western part of the Mediterranean and the eastern Mediterranean. The ridge is a layer of debris eroded from the side of the ridge and the surrounding area, indicating a rapid and intense deposit process. The age of these layers goes back to the period of Messenian (7.2 million to 5.3 million years ago) and Zan Clean (5.3 million to 3.6 million years ago), and about 5.3 million years ago. It is completely consistent.
“These ridge forms are mainly compatible with erosion due to large -scale turbulence in the northeast direction,” said Paul Curling of Southampton University, who participated in the study. “They reveal the immeasurable power of the Zan Clean Flood, how it changed the terrain and left a permanent trace in geological records.”
Curling and his colleagues also discovered a W -shaped waterway, which connects the ridge to the ocean valley, called a notes gorge in the eastern Mediterranean, on the east of Sicily’s Sil. Researchers have suggested that the Zan Clean Flood filled the western part of the Mediterranean and eventually poured water into the east of the sea when Sicily’s silver.
The team has also developed a computer model to rebuild this dynamics. Simulation suggests that water has changed over time, becoming more intense, reaching a maximum speed of 72 miles per hour (116 km / h).
“These discoveries not only clarify the serious moments in the geological history of the earth, but also prove that the terrain will survive for 5 million years,” said Mikalev. “This will open a door to further research along the Mediterranean coast.”
Zan Clean’s Flood is only a theory, but one certain thing is that the Mediterranean was probably not a peaceful destination like today, 5.3 million years ago.
