Tag Archive for 'Messinian salinity crisis'

The Sphinx was carved from the same rock formation that yielded the Herugavialis cairensis fossil, and both are missing the tip of the nose. Image credit: Karim Zanaty.

45-Million-Year-Old Crocodile Skull from Egypt Gets New Name: Herugavialis cairensis

Oct 7, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

CT scans of a fossil found near Cairo show the animal was not a relative of the false gharial (Tomistoma schlegelii), as paleontologists long thought. The...

One debated scenario for the termination of the Messinian salinity crisis 5.33 million years ago is cataclysmic refilling of the Mediterranean Sea through the Zanclean megaflood; Micallef et al. present a clear line of onshore-to-offshore evidence for this megaflood spilling over a shallow-water marine corridor in south-east Sicily into the nearby subaqueous Noto Canyon. This aerial photo shows a ridge eroded by the megaflood located north-east of Masseria del Volpe, south-east Sicily. Image credit: Kevin Sciberras & Neil Petroni.

Megaflood Refilled Mediterranean Sea 5.3 Million Years Ago, New Study Suggests

Jan 21, 2025 by News Staff

A massive flood called the Zanclean megaflood ended the Messinian salinity crisis, which lasted between 5.97 and 5.33 million years ago, according to new...