Vincent Nouyrigat, editor-in-chief of magazineEpsiloon today looks at the recent study of researchers who have just retraced the scenario of a major geological crisis in the Mediterranean, several million years ago.
franceinfo: Are we talking about the disappearance, the virtual disappearance of the Mediterranean Sea?
Vincent Nouyrigat: It may seem quite shocking: around 6 million years ago, this sea began to drain like a bathtub. Or rather, it evaporated. Everything played out at the Strait of Gibraltar, which at the time was gradually closing under the effect of plate tectonics.
Now it is a truly strategic place: it is through this strait that the surface waters of the Atlantic fill the Mediterranean; the large rivers which flow into it, such as the Rhône or the Nile, are unable to compensate for the evaporation of this warm sea. It is also here that the Mediterranean evacuates its excess salt via deep currents.
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