[meroes]

Something like this kind of drew me into geology. The inside jacket of my intro textbook explained the Mediterranean used to be damned naturally at Gibraltar or whatever the inlet is called and that so much salt water evaporated there where miles deep salt land features. Was instantly hooked

[pawsforthought]

This article links to another which discusses exactly that [1] — some geological event dammed the Mediterranean from the Atlantic 6 million years ago, after which the sea mostly dried out, then subsequently the entire thing refilled in the space of a couple years in the Zanclean Megaflood (at least, there’s mounting evidence that it happened in one cataclysmic event). First the western Mediterranean filled up to Sicily, then the eastern med, via a 1500m (5000ft) high waterfall!

[1]: https://everythingisamazing.substack.com/p/in-search-of-a-fl...

[treeman79]

Epic XKCD comic on this topic.

https://blog.xkcd.com/2013/07/29/1190-time/

[fractallyte]

I'm sure I read about this in one of the later editions of Principles of Physical Geology by Arthur Holmes...