Valencia gorge: possible Messinian refill channel for the western Mediterranean Sea

A deeply incised gorge is buried nearly 800 m beneath the floor of the Valencia Trough in the western Mediterranean Sea. The gorge is steeply cut more than 200 m into Messinian evaporite deposits and has been mapped for more than 40 km. Published and unpublished seismic profiles show the total length to be nearly 300 km. It may have been connected near Valencia with the Betic Strait, the portal in southern Spain proposed to link the Atlantic and the western Mediterranean. -from Authors