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The Conversation
The Conversation
Daniel García-Castellanos, Earth scientist, Instituto de Geociencias de Barcelona (Geo3Bcn – CSIC)

5.5 million years ago the Mediterranean dried out, with sobering lessons for humanity today – new research

Long-snouted seahorse (_Hippocampus guttulatus_). Vojce/Shutterstock

What would happen if humans dried out the Mediterranean sea, turning it into a giant salt lake? Would its wildlife survive, and if so, how long would it take to recover?

Map of the Mediterranean, showing the land that could be claimed from the by damming the Gibraltar Strait
Map of Herman Sörgel’s Atlantropa project, which aimed to partially empty the Mediterranean in order to gain more land in Europe, an extension of Nazi Germany’s idea of Lebensraum. Wikimedia Commons, Devilm25 (map), VulcanTrekkie45 (translation), CC BY
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