Black Sea was the largest lake on the planet millions of years ago - scientists

34 million years ago, there was a vast epicontinental area of water on Earth, 2.8 million square kilometers in size, called the Paratethys Sea. This gigantic area of water was formed by the uplift of orogenic belts in the Alps and Carpathians. The Paratethys Sea was connected to the Mediterranean Sea in the south. However, after some time, it lost its connection with the Mediterranean Sea due to the sudden collision of the African and European tectonic plates and became a lake.

IFLScience writes about it.

According to scientists, the newly created lake was 10 times larger than all modern ones and held 1.77 million cubic meters of water. Its surface area exceeded the Mediterranean Sea, but it was shallower.

After Paratethys became a lake, its flora and fauna became much more diverse due to the freshwater. In addition, the size of Paratethys affected the climate in Eurasia, making it milder. However, after some time, a drought began on the Eurasian continent, which led to the "extreme drying up" of the lake, because it had no other source of nutrition than precipitation, which was not available.

Most of the water evaporated from the lake between 9.8 and 7.7 million years ago, and the water level dropped to 250 meters, meaning that the lake's surface area decreased by 70% and its volume by 30%. The lake became the size of the current Black Sea.

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As the reservoir dried up, dolphins, seals, and the smallest whale species left it. This also affected the climate: winters became colder and summers hotter.

Eventually, Paratethys was divided into three parts:

- The Black Sea, with an area of 436 thousand square kilometers;

- The Caspian Sea, with an area of 371 thousand square kilometers;

- The Aral Sea, with an area of 68 thousand square kilometers.

As a reminder, we have already written about the eerie discovery in the pyramid of Maya's death.

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