The University of the South Pacific entered the Guinness Book of Records with the discovery of the largest lake in the world

A flow into the Mediterranean Sea is the most likely hypothesis for the disappearance of Paratethis. This phenomenon occurred between 6.7 and 6.9 million years ago. Today, the Aral Sea, Caspian Sea, and Black Sea are lakes formed from what remains of Paratethys.

The name is associated with Greek mythology. Thetis, the goddess of water sources, was the wife of Oceanus, the god of rivers. In the Mesozoic era (between 250 million and 65 million years ago), Tethys was the sea that separated the continents of Laurasia (which gave rise to North America and part of Asia and Europe) and Gondwana (which gave rise to the other present-day continents). . Paratithis is the lake that arises from the separation of the northern part of this sea from the rest of the water.

The researcher says: “The lake has reached an area that is now far from the ocean, but the area is full of evidence that there was once water there.”. According to Irina Patina, a scientist at the Geological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (which supported USP in the study), it is common to find whale shells and remains in the now mountainous area.

The study received public funding

The research received about R$ 300,000 from Fapesp (São Paulo State Research Support Foundation). In 2021, the results of the work were published in the journal Nature, one of the main scientific publications on the planet. Over the past three years, the Guinness team has examined all the study data to include the discovery in the book of records.

“A triumph for Brazilian science,” says the job seeker. According to Balko, the study contributes to understanding how the planet works and could be useful in a climate change scenario. Scientists expect to analyze the transformations that the Earth has undergone in the past to predict what might happen if current climate changes become more severe.