Mediterranean Sea factors. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 created the first salt-water passage between the Mediterranean and Red Sea. The Red Sea is higher than the Eastern Mediterranean, so the canal serves as a tidal strait that pours Red Sea water into the Mediterranean. The Bitter Lakes, which are hyper-saline natural lakes that form part of the canal, blocked the migration of Red Sea species into the Mediterranean for many decades, but as the salinity of the lakes gradually equalised with that of the Red Sea, the barrier to migration was removed, and plants and animals from the Red
The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean is an award-winning book by the British historian David Abulafia. First published in 2011, it is a history of the Mediterranean Sea from 22,000 BC to the present time, and provides one of the most comprehensive treatments of the subject since the works of Fernand Braudel. The book has been critically acclaimed and received the Mountbatten Literary Award from the Maritime Foundation, and the British Academy Medal. It has so far been translated into Dutch, Greek, Turkish, Spanish, Korean, German, Italian, Romanian