82,000 year old jewelry?

[Minimalist]

I can't find anything about the Med drying up in the last 5 million years.


Got a link?

[Rokcet Scientist]

No, this is from memory. Haven't got links ready for posting. Got to look around for references.

[Cognito]

I have.
The 'pillars of Hercules' collapsed, breached, in a cataclysmic flood that filled the med basin (which had a couple minor, landlocked seas in the middle up until that time). This is supposed to have happened 9,500 BP. At the end of the ice age. Strongly rising sea levels pressurized the isthmus of Gibraltar (where HN has been established), eventually leading to the breach.
In about 6,500 BP a similar process happened to 'Lake Euxine', when the Bosporus landbridge failed, and the Black Sea was formed.

R/S, what have you been smoking? Sea levels dropped to 120 meters lower than today's during the height of the Pleistocene, but the depth of the Gibraltar cut is 300 to 900 meters. Still no land bridge. Still no Neanderthals in Africa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strait_of_Gibraltar

The Mediterranean dried about 5 million years ago, not 20,000. There is no geological support for a "Pillars of Hercules" flood circa 9,500bp (actually 9,500bce). And Aksu et al have already proved that the 6,500bp (6,500bce) "Noah's Flood" a la Ryan and Pittman never happened since there was a continuous outflow of fresh water in the opposite direction to the Mediterranean until salt water reached parity with fresh. Otherwise, why the two deltas on the Mediterranean side of the Bosporus sill? And the cutting of the Bosporus did not create the Black Sea.

[Rokcet Scientist]

[...] Sea levels dropped to 120 meters lower than today's during the height of the Pleistocene, but the depth of the Gibraltar cut is 300 to 900 meters. [...]

That's easily explained, Cog: erosion!
The Gibraltar 'cut' is a bottleneck. Tidal and other currents are excessively strong there (which is why no swimmer has ever reached the other side alive – and believe me: thousands have tried in the past 20 years!). Those currents simply eroded the original breach to the present 300 to 900 meters.

The Mediterranean dried about 5 million years ago,

No, it was a (70%) dry basin prior to 5mio yrs BP. Then – 5mio yrs BP – Gibraltar breached, for the first time that we know of, and flooded the Med. Subsequent glaciations lowered sea levels again considerably, reconnecting the European and African headlands at Gibraltar. Until 9,500 yrs BP.

not 20,000.

Sea levels were 120 meters (400 feet) lower than today then!

[...] there was a continuous outflow of fresh water in the opposite direction to the Mediterranean until salt water reached parity with fresh. Otherwise, why the two deltas on the Mediterranean side of the Bosporus sill?

Rivers change flow direction, Cog! The Amazon is perhaps the best known example of that phenomenon: it used to flow to the West!

[Cognito]

Your Gibraltar speculation is off by 5 million years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messinian_Salinity_Crisis

However, the idea was popular in the 1920s. For a map of the Mediterranean during the Pleistocene and discussion of maritime activities see Bednarik's article below. The map is on page three and shows Gibraltar as a sea crossing, albeit narrower than today as a result of the 120 meter sea level drop.

http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/mariners/ ... persal.pdf

When was the last time the Amazon flowed in the opposite direction, and what does that have to do with the persistent outflow of water from the Caspian-Euxine basins during the Pleistocene and Holocene?

[Minimalist]

Nonetheless, we do know that sea level in the Med has fluctuated, as evidenced by the Malta cart tracks which disappear into the sea. This discussion of the process for them is quite interesting...if you like that sort of thing.

http://www3.sympatico.ca/slavek.krepelk ... cartra.htm

When we find such cart tracks under the sea, we have to understand that the karsting process has stopped at the time these tracks were flooded. If any of the submerged tracks should be at least as deep as the tracks found on the dry land in the same general locality, it is obvious that they are at least as old as the period of time past since the flooding, plus the duration of their development. In other words, if lets say 500mm deep track sunk, or was flooded 5000 years ago and the best guess on the karst indentation development speed is again 0.1mm/year, these tracks are some 10 000 years old.

[Rokcet Scientist]

When we find such cart tracks under the sea, we have to understand that the karsting process has stopped at the time these tracks were flooded. If any of the submerged tracks should be at least as deep as the tracks found on the dry land in the same general locality, it is obvious that they are at least as old as the period of time past since the flooding, plus the duration of their development. In other words, if lets say 500mm deep track sunk, or was flooded 5000 years ago and the best guess on the karst indentation development speed is again 0.1mm/year, these tracks are some 10 000 years old.

Now there's a dating method for Arch!