Practical Eschatology: Some Interesting Animations Of The Messinian Salinity Crisis

Thursday, June 25, 2026

Some Interesting Animations Of The Messinian Salinity Crisis

We tend to think that the Earth is largely unchanging, only slowly reshaped over unimaginably long times. But of course the Earth, including its climate, constantly changes and fluctuates. For instance, we are currently in an interglacial period and the relative warmth we enjoy will eventually fade into another ice age.

Most of the time the changes are slow or minor, but occasionally something truly transformative occurs. One of these is the Messinian salinity crisis when the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean was blocked, resulting in the Mediterranean Sea mostly drying out. From the Wikipedia article on the topic (footnotes omitted):

The Messinian salinity crisis (also referred to as the Messinian event, and in its latest stage as the Lago Mare event) was an event in which the Mediterranean Sea went into a cycle of partial or nearly complete desiccation (drying-up) throughout the latter part of the Messinian age of the Miocene epoch, from 5.96 to 5.33 Ma (million years ago). It ended with the Zanclean flood, when the Atlantic reclaimed the basin.

Sediment samples from below the deep seafloor of the Mediterranean Sea, which include evaporite minerals, soils, and fossil plants, show that the precursor of the Strait of Gibraltar closed about 5.96 million years ago, sealing the Mediterranean off from the Atlantic. This resulted in a period of partial desiccation of the Mediterranean Sea, the first of several such periods during the late Miocene. After the strait closed for the last time around 5.6 Ma, the region's generally dry climate at the time dried the Mediterranean basin out nearly completely within a thousand years. This massive desiccation left a deep dry basin, reaching 3 to 5 km (1.9 to 3.1 mi) deep below normal sea level, with a few hypersaline pockets similar to today's Dead Sea. Then, around 5.5 Ma, wetter climatic conditions resulted in the basin receiving more fresh water from rivers, progressively filling and diluting the hypersaline lakes into larger pockets of brackish water (much like today's Caspian Sea). The Messinian salinity crisis ended with the Strait of Gibraltar finally reopening 5.33 Ma, when the Atlantic rapidly filled up the Mediterranean basin in what is known as the Zanclean flood.

I found a few videos that have animated this drying and flooding event which I have placed below. The first video is primarily an animation; the second video goes into more detail on the conditions in the Mediterranean basin while it was dry; and the third is a more detailed presentation of the event.