Question: Could the 1 km. salt layer in the Mediterranean Sea happen again?

Hi Iris,

Great question! And the answer is: why not?! In the end the circumstances are quite similar for the Mediterranean sea today as they were 6 million years ago. There is only one difference. nowadays the Gibraltar strait is open and quite deep and wide. So, any water that evaporates from the Mediterranean gets filled again by the Atlantic ocean through the Gibraltar strait. 6 million years ago we think that the connection between the Atlantic ocean and Mediterranean sea got closed off, or at least part of it. That could happen also to the strait of Gibraltar today, for example if some earthquake would cause the seafloor to rise in the Gibraltar strait and it closes the strait off, we would again have the same situation of a closed of Mediterranean that would start to dry and a big layer of salt would get deposited. 2 things though: 1. the chance that it would happen again exactly on that spot i would find very unlikely. 2. IF it would happen, we would not live to see it (unfortunately!), as everything in geology these processes go really slowly and this lifting of the seafloor and the drying of the Mediterranean would at least take thousands of years. So don’t worry 😉