Original: L'Atalante and its neighbors the Urania and Discovery deep hypersaline anoxic basins ( DHABs ) are at most 35,000 years old , and were formed by Messinian evaporite salt deposits dissolving out of the Mediterranean Ridge and collecting in abyssal depressions about deep .
Simplified: Between the normal water and the brine is a short ( 1.5 metres ) boundary zone called a halocline .