It’s hard to believe that the Mediterranean Sea was once completely dry.
Then, about 5.33 million years ago, it refilled in less than two years. Flowing into the basin at a flow rate 1,000 times that of the Amazon River, water levels in the Mediterranean Sea rose at the incredible rate of 10 meters (33 ft) per day.
As a result, worldwide sea levels dropped 10 meters. Can you imagine what that would do to all the world’s ports today if sea levels should drop 33 feet in less than two years?
Is it just a coincidence, I wonder, that this cataclysmic event took place at the end-Miocene … and a magnetic reversal? (See also Magnetic Reversals and Evolutionary Leaps, chapter 6.)
Today, the Mediterranean Sea’s deepest recorded depth is 5,267 meters (more than 3 miles).
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August 11, 2018 at 04:01AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 