The Red Sea faced an Earth-shattering ecological crisis 6 million years past.

The Red Sea was completely devoid of water 6.2 million years in the past — but the Indian Ocean then forced its way through a line of volcanoes and underwater mountains and refilled it in just 100,000 years.(Image credit: Astromujoff/Getty Images)

The Book of Exodus recounts a remarkable splitting of the Red Sea that let Moses and the Israelites get away from Egypt. At present, science offers an older and more drastic story: Roughly 6.2 million years ago, the Red Sea became fully dry.

Centuries later, the parched seabed was replenished in a massive inundation that may have fashioned a profound, nearly 200-mile-long (320 kilometers) submarine gorge into the Red Sea’s base.

“Our results indicate that the Red Sea basin documents one of the most intense ecological occurrences on Earth, when it entirely dehydrated and was then swiftly inundated roughly 6.2 million years ago,” stated study leading author Tihana Pensa, a scientist at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia, in a declaration. “The deluge altered the basin, re-established marine circumstances, and forged the Red Sea’s permanent link to the Indian Ocean.”

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The Red Sea started its formation 30 million years ago as the African and Arabian tectonic plates moved away from each other, or rifted. It existed as a deep valley dotted with lakes until the Mediterranean Sea inundated it 23 million years ago. Nevertheless, just prior to 6 million years ago, the Red Sea underwent a 640,000-year “salinity catastrophe.” Sea altitudes declined and salt concentrations increased drastically, resulting in deposits of salt up to 1.2 miles (2 km) in depth in some areas. Marine organisms died off.

Now, a fresh investigation of the seabed reveals that the Red Sea completely dehydrated during this catastrophe, evolving into a barren, salty desert. This desolate duration came to a close with an inundation from the Indian Ocean, which breached a volcanic ridge that detached the Red Sea from the Gulf of Aden, Pensa and her associates reported in their investigation, released Aug. 9 in the journal Communications Earth & Environment.

The researchers merged data on the rock strata underneath the Red Sea with seismic data that can define the layers of sediment and salt deposited during the sea’s history. They detected a discordance throughout the seabed — a location where older, angled sedimentary layers were instantly overlain by a horizontal layer of rock. The uniformity of this layer implies that the entire sea desiccated during this time frame.

To date the occurrences, the researchers followed variations in radioactive strontium that fluctuates at a recognized rate in the oceans. They also scrutinized microfossils, which were generally absent between 14 million and 6.2 million years ago, when the Red Sea was either extraordinarily salty or totally dry. Beyond 6.2 million years ago, fossils of marine animals like sea snails and bivalves reappear.

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The researchers contend that the water — and life — was restored because the Indian Ocean pushed through a ridge of volcanoes and seamounts in the Gulf of Aden recognized as the Hanish Sill.

This would have transpired promptly, in fewer than 100,000 years, and may have been potent enough to carve a 200-mile-long, 5-mile-wide (8 km) submarine gorge that still extends from the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea presently.

Stephanie PappasSocial Links NavigationLive Science Contributor

Stephanie Pappas serves as a contributing writer for Live Science, handling subjects spanning from geoscience to archaeology to the human brain and conduct. She formerly held the position of a senior writer for Live Science but presently operates as a freelancer residing in Denver, Colorado, and habitually contributes to Scientific American and The Monitor, the monthly magazine of the American Psychological Association. Stephanie secured a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of South Carolina and a graduate certificate in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

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