The Changing Mediterranean

From the Zanclean Flood to the Suez Canal

Marseille, France. Photo by T on Unsplash

I created an A to Z of sea snails on BlueSky. Each day, I picked a species, family or non-taxonomic group to discuss. I’m going to work up some of those short threads into stories here, because Medium offers an opportunity to explore the topics in more detail.

This story came from B is for the Baeolidia (a type of sea slug), in which I looked at the way in which we are changing the distribution of animals.

On 23 March 2021, the container vessel Ever Given stuck fast in the Suez Canal. Over the following few days, the huge container ship became a focus of attention across the world. An image of a mechanical digger, looking like a toy beside the vast hull, turned into a meme. The ship was freed on 29 March, having blocked international ship traffic for six days.

But Ever Given wasn’t the first vessel to block the Suez Canal. On the canal’s opening day, the French ship Péluse swung around. It was shifted much sooner than Ever Given and shipping resumed the next day. It has barely stopped since.

Port Said, Egypt, at the northern entrance of the Suez Canal. Photo by Rafik Wahba on Unsplash