Summary
Six million years ago (6 Ma), during the late Miocene epoch, tectonic activity closed the Mediterranean Sea. During this “Messinian Salinity Crisis (MSC),” the Mediterranean dried up, becoming a warm, windy desert around isolated brackish lakes. At the end of the Crisis (5.3 Ma), the Straits of Gibraltar opened, rapidly reflooding the Mediterranean, reconnecting it with the Atlantic and establishing present-day geography and circulation. The MSC’s effects on the hydrologic budget and plant species of Mediterranean Europe and Africa as well as Atlantic Ocean temperatures are still largely unkno
