Physiographic and geologic features

Natural divisions

A submarine ridge between the island of Sicily and the African coast with a sill depth of about 1,200 feet (365 metres) divides the Mediterranean Sea into western and eastern parts. The western part in turn is subdivided into three principal submarine basins. The Alborán Basin is east of Gibraltar, between the coasts of Spain and Morocco. The Algerian (sometimes called the Algero-Provençal or Balearic) Basin, east of the Alborán Basin, is west of Sardinia and Corsica, extending from off the coast of Algeria to off the coast of France. These two basins together constitute the western basin. The Tyrrhenian Basin, that part of the Mediterranean known as the Tyrrhenian Sea, lies between Italy and the islands of Sardinia and Corsica.

The eastern Mediterranean is subdivided into two major basins. The Ionian Basin, in the area known as the Ionian Sea, lies to the south of Italy, Albania, and Greece, where the deepest sounding in the Mediterranean, about 16,000 feet (4,900 metres), has been recorded. A submarine ridge between the western end of Crete and Cyrenaica (Libya) separates the Ionian Basin from the Levantine Basin to the south of Anatolia (Turkey); and the island of Crete separates the Levantine Basin from the Aegean Sea, which comprises that part of the Mediterranean Sea north of Crete and bounded on the west and north by the coast of Greece and on the east by the coast of Turkey. The Aegean Sea contains the numerous islands of the Grecian archipelago. The Adriatic Sea, northwest of the main body of the eastern Mediterranean Sea, is bounded by Italy to the west and north and by Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Albania to the east.

Geology

Until the 1960s the Mediterranean was thought to be the main existing remnant of the Tethys Sea, which formerly girdled the Eastern Hemisphere. Studies employing the theory of seafloor spreading that have been undertaken since the late 20th century, however, have suggested that the present Mediterranean seafloor is not part of the older (200 million years) Tethys floor. The structure and present form of this tectonically active basin and its bordering mountain system have been determined by the convergence and recession of the relatively stable continental plates of Eurasia and Africa during the past 44 million years. The interpretation of geologic data suggests that there are, at present, multiple main areas of collision between Africa and Eurasia, resulting in volcanism, mountain building, and land submergence.

Desiccation theory and bottom deposits

The study of seabed sediment cores drilled in 1970 and 1975 initially seemed to reinforce an earlier theory that about 6 million years ago the Mediterranean was a dry desert nearly 10,000 feet (3,000 metres) below the present sea level and covered with evaporite salts. High ridges at Gibraltar were assumed to have blocked the entry of Atlantic waters until about 5.5 million years ago, when these waters broke through to flood the Mediterranean. More-recent seismic and microfossil studies have suggested that the seafloor never was completely dry. Instead, about 5 million years ago the seafloor consisted of several basins of variable size and topography, with depths ranging from 650 to 5,000 feet (200 to 1,500 metres). Highly saline waters of greatly varying depth probably covered the bottom and deposited salts. Considerable uncertainty has remained regarding the chronology and character of sea-bottom salt formation, and evidence from subsequent seismic studies and core sampling has been subject to intense scientific debate.

Physiography

The Tyrrhenian Basin of the western Mediterranean has two exits into the eastern Mediterranean: the Strait of Sicily and the Strait of Messina, both of which have been of great strategic importance throughout Mediterranean history. The submarine relief of the Sicilian channel is rather complicated; the group of islands comprising Malta, Gozo, and Comino, all of which consist of limestone, stands on a submarine shelf that extends southward from Sicily.

The widest continental shelf is off Spain at the Ebro River delta, where it extends about 60 miles (95 km). Similarly, west of Marseille, France, the shelf widens at the Rhône River delta to 40 miles (65 km). The shelf is narrow along the French Riviera, the gradient of its slope increasing where cut by canyons and troughs. The narrow shelves continue off the Italian peninsula, generally with lower, more-gradual slopes. Along the coast at the base of the Atlas Mountains of North Africa, a narrow shelf stretches from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Gulf of Tunis with a slope marked by many troughlike indentations.

The coasts of the western Mediterranean, just as those of the eastern basin, have been subjected in recent geologic times to the uneven action of deposition and erosion. This action, together with the movements of the sea and the emergence and submergence of the land, resulted in a rich variety of types of coasts. The Italian peninsula underwent considerable uplift in post-Pliocene times (i.e., within the past 2.6 million years), as a result of which a strip of older rocks has been exposed on the Adriatic flank of the Apennines. The Italian Adriatic coast is typical of an emerged coast. The granite coast of northeastern Sardinia and the Dalmatian coast where the eroded land surface has sunk, producing elongated islands parallel to the coast, are typical submerged coasts. The deltas of the Rhône, Po, Ebro, and Nile rivers are good examples of coasts resulting from silt deposition.

The Sicilian straits scarcely exceed 1,500 feet (460 metres) in depth, so that there is essentially a shelf from Tunisia to Sicily separating the Mediterranean into two parts. South of the straits the shelf widens to as much as 170 miles (275 km) off the Gulf of Gabes (Qābis) on the eastern coast of Tunisia. The first mud appears on the approach to the Nile delta, and the shelf widens again to 70 miles (115 km) off Port Said, Egypt, at the entrance to the Suez Canal. Narrow shelves continue along most of the northern shore of the Mediterranean. An exception is the broad shelf extending for 300 miles (485 km) along the inner portion of the Adriatic Sea. Relatively deep water is found along much of the coasts of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro and along the southern Italian coast, in contrast to the gentle slopes of the Po River region.

The northern shores of the eastern Mediterranean are highly complex and, unlike the southern shores, have variable fold mountains that offered favourable sites for the development of the Mediterranean civilizations. The north coast of Africa bordering the eastern Mediterranean is low-lying and of monotonous uniformity except for the Cyrenaica highlands in Libya, which lie to the east of the Gulf of Sidra. The largest islands of the eastern Mediterranean are Crete and Cyprus, both of which are mountainous.