As a kid I remember reading a book about the refilling of the Mediterranean Sea after the strait at Gilbraltar was closed up for millions of years, keeping Atlantic Ocean water from entering the basin. Today I saw two separate stories about the Mediterranean Sea and paleoclimate, one based on the story I mentioned above and a second based on more modern observations of Aegean flooding about 7600 years ago.
The first story, from Scientific American, describes how the Mediterranean Sea reopened to the Atlantic about six million years ago and has a great video showing the progression of water over time. You can see that at https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-megaflood-powered-mile-high-waterfall-refilled-the-mediterranean-video/.
The second story, from Phys.org, describes the loss of early agricultural sites in the Aegean Sea about 7600 years ago after an abrupt rise in sea level drowned many of the early settlements there. Their discovery was tied to tiny sea plankton found in sediment cores in the northeastern Mediterranean. You can read more about that at https://phys.org/news/2018-03-mediteranean-sea-human-settlements.html.
