Vanished Reading Answers

Apr 29, 2023

Vanished Reading Answers is an academic reading passage. IELTS reading section checks students' comprehension skills using a range of issue kinds. In this IELTS Reading topic- Vanished Reading Answers, there are three sorts of questions: No more than three words, Choose the Correct Answer, and Complete the Statements with the Best Ending. Vanished Reading Answers contains an academic passage comprising questions 1-13. The IELTS Reading answers, as well as where they're situated in the passage and the keywords that will help you identify them, are found after the questions. IELTS reading practice papers cover a variety of themes to help students improve their exam performance.

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Section 1

Read the Passage to Answer the Following Questions

Vanished Reading Answers

A.Who pulled the plug on the Mediterranean? And could it happen again? By Douglas Mclnrris Cannes. Monte Carlo. St Tropez. Magic names all. And much of the enchantment comes from the deep blue water that laps their shores. But what if somebody pulled the plug? Suppose The Mediterranean Sea was to vanish, leaving behind an expanse of the salt desert the size of India. Hard to imagine? It happened.

‘It would have looked like Death Valley,’ says Bill Ryan, from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York, one of the leaders of the team that discovered the Mediterranean had once dried up, then refilled in a deluge of Biblical proportions. Between five and six million years ago, the great desiccation touched off what scientists call the Messinian Salinity Crisis – a global chemical imbalance that triggered a wrenching series of extinctions and plunged the Earth into an ice age.

B.The first indications of some extraordinary past events came in the 1960s when geologists discovered that major rivers flowing into the Mediterranean had eroded deep canyons in the rock at the bottom of the sea. River erosion of bedrock cannot occur below sea level, yet somehow the River Rhone in the South of France had managed to create a channel 1000 meters deep in the seafloor, while the Nile had cut nearly 1500 meters into the rock off the North African coast. There was more: despite the fact that the formation of caves can only take place above water, scientists discovered a whole network beneath the island of Malta that reached an astonishing depth of 2000 meters below sea level.

C.Further evidence came to light in 1970 when an international team chugged across the Mediterranean in a drilling ship to study the seafloor near the Spanish island of Majorca. Strange things started turning up in core samples: layers of microscopic plants and soil sandwiched between beds of salt more than two kilometers below today’s sea level. The plants had grown in sunlight. Also discovered inside the rock were fossilized shallow-water shellfish, together with salt and silt: particles of sand and mud that had once been carried by river water. Could the seafloor once have been near a shoreline?

That question led Ryan and his fellow team leader, Kenneth Hsu, to piece together a staggering chain of events. About 5.8 million years ago, they concluded, the Mediterranean was gradually cut off from the Atlantic Ocean when continental drift pinned Morocco against Spain. As the opening became both narrower and shallower, the deep outward flow from sea to the ocean was progressively cut off, leaving only the shallow inward flow of ocean water into the Mediterranean. As this water evaporated, the sea became more saline and creatures that couldn’t handle the rising salt content perished. ‘The sea’s interior was dead as a doornail, except for bacteria,’ says Ryan. When the shallow opening at Gibraltar finally closed completely, the Mediterranean, with only rivers to feed it, dried up and died.

D.Meanwhile, the evaporated water was falling back to Earth as rain. When the fresh water reached the oceans, it made them less saline. With less salt in it to act as an antifreeze, parts of the ocean that would not normally freeze began to turn to ice. ‘The ice reflects sunlight into space,’ says Ryan. ‘The planet cools. Do you drive yourself into an ice age?

Eventually; a small breach in the Gibraltar dam sent the process into reverse. Ocean water cut a tiny channel to the Mediterranean. As the gap enlarged, the water flowed faster and faster; until the torrent ripped through the emerging Straits of Gibraltar at more than 100 knots. *The Gibraltar Falls was 100 times bigger than Victoria Falls and a thousand times grander than Niagara,’ Hsu wrote in his book The Mediterranean was a Desert (Princeton University Press, 1983).

E.In the end, the rising waters of the vast inland sea drowned the falls and warm water began to escape to the Atlantic, reheating the oceans and the planet. The salinity crisis ended about 5.4 million years ago. It had lasted roughly 400,000 years. Subsequent drilling expeditions have added a few wrinkles to Ryan and Hsu’s scenario. For example, researchers have found salt deposits more than two kilometers thick — so thick, some believe, that the Mediterranean must have dried up and refilled many times. But those are just geological details. For tourists, the crucial question is, could it happen again? Should Malaga start stockpiling dynamite?

Not yet, says Ryan. If continental drift does reseal the Mediterranean, it won’t be for several million years. ‘Some future creatures may face the issue of how to respond to nature‘s closure. It’s not something our species has to worry about.’

Section 2

Solution and Explanation
Questions 1-5:
Complete the summary below. Choose NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage for each answer.

The 1960s discovery of 1…………………….. in the bedrock of the Mediterranean, as well as deep caves beneath Malta, suggested something strange had happened in the region, as these features must have been formed 2……………. sea level. Subsequent examination of the 3……………. off Majorca provided more proof. Rock samples from 2000 meters down contained both vegetation and 4…………………….. that could not have lived in deep water, as well as 5…………………….. originally transported by river.

Question 1:

Answer: (DEEP) CANYONS
Supporting Sentence: The first indications of some extraordinary past events came in the 1960s when geologists discovered that major rivers flowing into the Mediterranean had eroded deep canyons in the rock at the bottom of the sea.
Keywords: Mediterranean, 1960s, past, events, extraordinary
Keyword Location: Para 3
Explanation: It was first in the 1960s that deep canyons at the bedrock of the Mediterranean were found by scientists, which were formed due to erosion from major rivers that were flowing to the sea.

Question 2:

Answer: ABOVE
Supporting Sentence: despite the fact that the formation of caves can only take place above water, scientists discovered a whole network beneath the island of Malta that reached an astonishing depth of 2000 meters below sea level.
Keywords: caves, formation, water
Keyword Location: Para 3
Explanation: Strange things have happened that were evident, since cave formation from river erosion of bedrock can only happen above sea level and not the water.

Question 3:

Answer: SEAFLOOR
Supporting Sentence: Further evidence came to light in 1970 when an international team chugged across the Mediterranean in a drilling ship to study the seafloor near the Spanish island of Majorca.
Keywords: evidence, Mediterranean, Majorca
Keyword Location: Para 4
Explanation: Proof was found on the seafloor near the Spanish island of Majorca.

Question 4:

Answer: SHELLFISH
Supporting Sentence: Also discovered inside the rock were fossilized shallow-water shellfish, together with salt and silt: particles of sand and mud that had once been carried by river water.
Keywords: rock, shallow-water, river, water, fossilized
Keyword Location: Para 4
Explanation: Scientists found microscopic pants and fossilized shallow-water shellfish that could not have lived in deep seawater in Majorca.

Question 5:

Answer: SILT / SAND AND MUD
Supporting Sentence: Also discovered inside the rock were fossilized shallow-water shellfish, together with salt and silt: particles of sand and mud that had once been carried by river water.
Keywords: rock, shallow-water, river, water
Keyword Location: Para 4
Explanation: At Majorca island, scientists found vegetation, fossilized shallow water shellfish, along with silt, sand, and mud, which were probably transported by river water.

Questions 6-8:
Complete each of the following statements with the best ending from the box

Africa and Europe crashed into each other.
water started flowing from the Mediterranean.
The sea was cut off from the ocean.
all the fish and plant life in the Mediterranean died.
the Earth started to become colder.
The channel grew bigger, creating the waterfalls.
all the ice on earth melted.

The extra ice did not absorb the heat from the sun, so ………..

Answer: E. the Earth started to become colder.
Supporting Sentence: The ice reflects sunlight into space,’ says Ryan. ‘The planet cools. Do you drive yourself into an ice age?
Keywords: ice, sunlight, ice age, reflects
Keyword Location: Para 6
Explanation: It is the ice that is a medium to reflect the sunlight back to space. Thus the earth is bound to get colder without the presence of sunlight.

The speed of the water from the Atlantic increased as ………..

Answer: F. The channel grew bigger, creating the waterfalls.
Supporting Sentence: Ocean water cut a tiny channel to the Mediterranean. As the gap enlarged, the water flowed faster and faster; until the torrent ripped through the emerging Straits of Gibraltar at more than 100 knots.
Keywords: ocean water, channel, gap, enlarged
Keyword Location: Para 7
Explanation: The speeding water from the Atlantic ocean cut a channel into the Mediterranean. As the channel grew bigger, the water started to flow faster, creating waterfalls.

The Earth and its oceans become warmer when …………….

Answer: B. water started flowing from the Mediterranean.
Supporting Sentence: In the end, the rising waters of the vast inland sea drowned the falls and warm water began to escape to the Atlantic, reheating the oceans and the planet.
Keywords: rising water, falls, warm, Atlantic, reheating, planet
Keyword Location: Para 8
Explanation: In the end, the rising waters from the Mediterranean sea drowned the falls. They escaped to the Atlantic, which means the ocean was reheated and the earth became warmer.

Question 9-13:
Choose the appropriate letters A, B, C or D.

What, according to Ryan and Hsu, happened about 5.8 million years ago?

Movement of the continents suddenly closed the Straits of Gibraltar.
The water level of the Atlantic Ocean gradually fell.
The flow of water into the Mediterranean was immediately cut off.
Water stopped flowing from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic.

Answer: D. Water stopped flowing from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic.
Supporting Sentence: About 5.8 million years ago, they concluded, the Mediterranean was gradually cut off from the Atlantic Ocean when continental drift pinned Morocco against Spain. As the opening became both narrower and shallower, the deep outward flow from sea to the ocean was progressively cut off, leaving only the shallow inward flow of ocean water into the Mediterranean.
Keywords: 5.8 million, years ago, Mediterranean
Keyword Location: Para 5
Explanation: According to Ryan and Hsu, about 5.8 million years ago the Mediterranean sea was cut off from the Atlantic ocean when the continent drifted and pinned Morocco with Spain, so the water level in the Atlantic got shallow and narrow.

Why did most of the animal and plant life in the Mediterranean diet?

The water became too salty.
There was such a lot of bacteria in the water
The rivers did not provide salt water.
The sea became a desert.

Answer: A. The water became too salty.
Supporting Sentence: As this water evaporated, the sea became more saline, and creatures that couldn’t handle the rising salt content perished. ‘The sea’s interior was dead as a doornail,
Keywords: water, more saline, evaporated, sea’s interior
Keyword Location: Para 5
Explanation: Most of the animal and plant life died in the Mediterranean. It had become too salty and the rising salt content was not possible to handle.

According to the text, the events at Gibraltar led to

a permanent cooling of the Earth.
the beginning and the end of an ice age.
The formation of waterfalls elsewhere in the world.
a lack of salt in the oceans that continues to this day.

Answer: B
Supporting Sentence: When the shallow opening at Gibraltar finally closed completely, the Mediterranean, with only rivers to feed it, dried up and died… ‘The ice reflects sunlight into space,’ says Ryan. ‘The planet cools. Do you drive yourself into an ice age?... In the end, the rising waters of the vast inland sea drowned the falls and warm water began to escape to the Atlantic, reheating the oceans and the planet.
Keywords: Gibraltar, ice age, reheating oceans
Keyword Location: Para 5 - 8
Explanation: The events at Gibraltar led to the beginning and the end of the ice age. As the water in Gibraltar evaporated and fell back to earth, the freshwater reduced saline. Thus the ice-water reflected sunlight back to space, beginning the ice age. However, with a crack in the Mediterranean, inland water flowed to the sea and the warm water marked the end of the ice age.

More recent studies show that

Ryan and Hsu’s theory was correct in every detail.
the Mediterranean was never cut off from the Atlantic.
it may have been cut off more than once.
it might once have been a freshwater lake.

Answer: C
Supporting Sentence: some believe that the Mediterranean must have dried up and refilled many times.
Keywords: dried up, refilled, more than once
Keyword Location: Para 8
Explanation: Recent studies have found that the drying up and refilling of the Mediterranean must have happened several times.

At the end of the article, Ryan suggests that

the Mediterranean will never dry up again.
humans will have the technology to prevent it drying up again.
the Mediterranean is certain to dry up again one day
humans will never see the Mediterranean dry up,

Answer: D
Supporting Sentence: If continental drift does reseal the Mediterranean, it won’t be for several million years. ‘Some future creatures may face the issue of how to respond to nature‘s closure. It’s not something our species has to worry about.’
Keywords: Ryan, Mediterranean, million years
Keyword Location: Para 9
Explanation: It is impossible for humans to witness the drying of the Mediterranean since it will take up several million years.

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