Around 6 million years ago, between the Miocene and Pliocene epochs—or more specifically, the Messinian and Zanclean ages—the Mediterranean Sea was cut off from the Atlantic Ocean and formed a ...

This surge of water - the Zanclean Megaflood - is said to have ended a period during which the Mediterranean was a vast expanse of salt flats, known as the Messinian Salinity Crisis, which lasted ...

However, during the Messinian Salinity Crisis, a far more extreme event took place. Nearly one million cubic kilometers of salt, mainly gypsum and halite, were deposited, creating a legacy that ...