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Marine sediment, or ocean sediment, or seafloor sediment, are deposits of insoluble particles that have accumulated on the seafloor.These particles either have their origins in soil and rocks and have been transported from the land to the sea, mainly by rivers but also by dust carried by wind and by the flow of glaciers into the sea, or they are biogenic deposits from marine organisms or from ...
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. [6]
Sapropels have been recorded in the Mediterranean sediments since the closure of the Eastern Tethys Ocean 13.5 million years ago. The formation of sapropel events in the Mediterranean Sea occurs approximately every 21,000 years and last between 3,000 and 5,000 years. The first identification of these events occurred in the mid-20th century.
The evidence used to support this scenario includes the disparate ages of sapropel deposition in the eastern Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea; buried back-stepping barrier islands observed on the Black Sea shelf; and an under-water delta in the Marmara Sea, near the Bosporus Strait, composed of Black Sea sediments. [16] [17] [18]
[24] [38] In 2020, scientists from the University of Manchester analysed sediment samples of the Mediterranean Sea and identified the highest concentration ever recorded of microplastics on sediments of the sea floor; the scientists also discovered that such microplastics are moved by wind, storms, hurricane and currents present in the sea bed ...
The Zanclean flood or Zanclean deluge is theorized to have refilled the Mediterranean Sea 5.33 million years ago. [1] This flooding ended the Messinian salinity crisis and reconnected the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean, although it is possible that even before the flood there were partial connections to the Atlantic Ocean. [2]
The Tyrrhenian Basin is a sedimentary basin located in the western Mediterranean Sea under the Tyrrhenian Sea.It covers a 231,000 km 2 area that is bounded by Sardinia to the west, Corsica to the northwest, Sicily to the southeast, and peninsular Italy to the northeast.
L'Atalante basin is a hypersaline brine lake at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea about 192 km (119 mi) west of the island of Crete. [1] It is named for the French L'Atalante, [2] one of the oceanographic research vessels involved in its discovery in 1993. [3]