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Chapter 16 - The Messinian Crisis

The Great Drying of the Mediterranean Sea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 April 2025

Peter Copeland  and
Janok P. Bhattacharya
Peter Copeland
Affiliation:
University of Houston
Janok P. Bhattacharya
Affiliation:
McMaster University, Ontario
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Summary

The largest canyon on land today is the Grand Canyon, one of the seven natural wonders of the world, 446 kilometers long, 29 kilometers wide, and 1,857 meters deep, that we reviewed in Chapter 1. Of course, these dimensions pale compared to oceanic basins, but despite their far more extensive dimensions, oceans are always filled with seawater. Or are they? As we have seen in the chapter on plate tectonics, oceans do not last forever.

Type
Chapter
Information
Earth History
Stories of Our Geological Past
 , pp. 318 - 335
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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References

Further Reading and References

Barber, P. M., 1981, Messinian subaerial erosion of the proto-Nile Delta, Marine Geology, 44, 253–272.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chumakov, I. S., 1973, 44.3. Pliocene and Pleistocene deposits of the Nile Valley in Nubia and Upper Egypt, in Deep Sea Drilling Project, volume XIII, https://doi:10.2973/dsdp.proc.13.144-3.1973.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hsu, K. J., 1982, The Mediterranean Was a Desert: A Voyage of The Glomar Challenger, Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Roveri, M., Manzi, V., Genneri, R., and Lugli, S., 2006, The record of Messinian events in the Northern Apennines fordeep basins, L’Ateneo parmense. Acta naturalia: organo della Società di medicina e scienze naturali di Parma, 42(3), 47–125.Google Scholar
Ryan, W. B. F., 2009, Decoding the Mediterranean salinity crisis, Sedimentology, 56(1), 95–136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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