Wednesday, September 1st, 2021. Time: 15h

See video

Online - Session link:  https://meet.google.com/wgr-kyjv-cyr

ABSTRACT

About 5.5 million years ago the Mediterranean Sea underwent a dramatic hydrological, environmental and biological crisis, as its connection to the global ocean and water supply was disrupted. This Messinian Salinity Crisis (MSC) left a salt deposit of thousands of cubic kilometers on the basin floor, and caused deep incision of rivers on its margins as they adjusted to a lowered water level. This makes it one of the largest salt deposits on earth, and by far the youngest, least affected by subsequent tectonic events.

After 50 years of scientific effort by geologists, geochemists, geophysicists and others some of the large controversies surrounding the MSC remain unresolved. In this talk I will discuss the advances in MSC research since its discovery during the first oceanic drilling campaign in the Mediterranean in 1970, and illustrate how the vast amount of data gathered in these efforts now allow us to use modelling to decipher some of its mysteries.

SPEAKER CV

Hanneke Heida (1994) obtained her BSc. And MSc. In Earth Sciences at Utrecht University (NL). She is currently working as a PhD candidate at Geosciences Barcelona - CSIC under the supervision of Daniel Garcia Castellanos and Ivone Jiménez Munt. Her work focusses on using numerical modelling to quantify the vertical motions and paleo topography of the Mediterranean since the onset of the Messinian Salinity Crisis 6 million years ago, to better understand the dynamics of a basin undergoing massive and rapid environmental change.

See Coffee Talk’s Programme 2021