The largest flood in Earth’s history burst through Gibraltar and Sicily and refilled the entire Mediterranean in just a few years.

Daniel García-Castellanos, Paul Carling11 April 2025
A little over 5 million years ago, water from the Atlantic Ocean found a way through the present-day Strait of Gibraltar.

According to this theory, ocean water rushed fast down a kilometre-high slope towards the empty Mediterranean basin, excavating a skyscraper-deep trough on its way.