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Late Messinian submarine channel systems in the Levant Basin: Challenging the desiccation scenario

The question of whether the Mediterranean Sea desiccated during the Messinian salinity crisis (MSC) has been strongly debated for decades. In the Levant Basin, this debate was recently reignited in relation to the latest stage of the crisis after cessation of salt deposition. The desiccation supporters argue that salt truncation—and its subsequent burial by a latest Messinian, clastic-rich evaporitic unit—occurred subaerially on a desiccated seafloor. However, we show that this latest Messinian unit contains a dense net of channels with meanders, levees, and overspill deposits and is very similar to the turbidite channels observed on the modern seafloor. The aggradation characteristics of these buried channels (levee height, channel depth, and channel-floodplain coupling) indicate a marine rather than fluvial origin. Our conclusion adds to the findings of a previous study that salt truncation occurred in deep waters by dissolution. In a wider perspective, we suggest that the flush of clastics into the basin during the last stage of the MSC indicates a combination of wet climate and sea-level rise that started before the Zanclean (earliest Pliocene).