Uncovering the Mediterranean Salt Giant (MEDSALT) - Scientific Networking as Incubator of Cross-disciplinary Research in Earth Sciences

About 6 million years ago, the Mediterranean basin was the location of one of the most extraordinary events in the recent geological history of the Earth: the Messinian Salinity Crisis. Restriction of the seawater exchange between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean led to excess evaporation and deposition on the bottom of the deep Mediterranean basins of a 1.5 km-thick salt layer. Research on this event initiated a long-term scientific controversy. COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology) and Marie Skłodowska-Curie European Training Networks were identified as the most appropriate tools to address and solve the controversy using a highly cross-disciplinary approach.