Impact of Atlantic Waters in the Alboran Basin at the end of the Messinian Salinity Crisis: the Zanclean Flooding

Abstract

The restoration of the Atlantic/Mediterranean c onnection through the Gibraltar Strait look place at eht end of Messinian Salinity Crisis and produced a huge flooding in a very short period of time, know as the Zanclean flooding. This catastrophic event priduced significant erosion along the Alboran Basin thet can be tracked eastward from the Gibraltar Strait till the transition to the Algero-Balear Basin. The interaction of the Atlantic water masses with the complex Messinian physiography sculpted an erosive corridor whose morphological characteristics vary along its pathway. At present-day, this eroisve corridor locally appears strongly deformed by Plio-Pleistocene tectonics and mud diapirism