Mediterranean Sea million years ago (mya) in less than two years by the Zanclean flood. Water poured in from the Atlantic Ocean through a newly breached gateway now called the Strait of Gibraltar at an estimated rate of about three orders of magnitude (one thousand times) larger than the current flow of the Amazon River. The Mediterranean Sea has an average depth of and the deepest recorded point is in the Calypso Deep in the Ionian Sea. The coastline extends for . A shallow submarine ridge (the Strait of Sicily) between the island of Sicily and the coast of Tunisia divides the
Invasion of the Sea 1800s. He discovered that large areas of the Sahara Desert were below sea level and proposed that a canal be dug from the Mediterranean Sea to these Saharan basins, which would allow for the creation of an inland "Sahara Sea". Others had made similar proposals at the same time, and canal building generally was a popular geopolitical endeavor of the first decade of the 1900s, when "Invasion of the Sea" was written. Some have noted that the inclusion of the Berber raiders (who are opposed to the efforts of the European engineers and military officers) is a foreshadowing of the