During the Younger Dryas, the flow of water masses from the eastern Mediterranean to the Atlantic Ocean through the Strait of Gibraltar doubled, according to a study published in Nature's Communications Earth & Environment journal. The work has applied the innovative technique of neodymium (Nd) isotopes to reconstruct the conditions in the Mediterranean since the last deglaciation, some 14,000 years ago.
The study is part of the doctoral thesis being carried out by Sergio Trias-Navarro, under the supervision of Professor Leopoldo Pena and Professor Isabel Cacho, from the consolidated research group in Marine Geosciences (GCR Marine Geosciences) of the Faculty of Earth Sciences of the University of Barcelona. The study presents some of the most relevant results of the European Research Council’s TIMED project (ERC-Consolidator), and has an outstanding participation of members of the GCR Marine Geosciences, and experts from La Sapienza University of Rome, the University of Palermo (Italy), and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (Switzerland).
Read more at: University of Barcelona
A UB-led study reconstructs the changes in the Mediterranean during the most intense climate change of the last 13,000 years, known as the Younger Dryas (Photo Credit: University of Barcelona)