1983) that the development of the drainage network of the Ebro and its debouchment into the Mediterranean was due to some small E or SE flowing stream which had cut by headward erosion the Catalan Coastal Ranges during the low sea-level interval of the Messinian (Late Miocene), when it had increased energy/stream power.
These rivers captured the sediments of an interior drainage basin by headward erosion of some small Mediterranean coastal rivers (Verges et al, 1996).
The rivers such as the Rhone and the Nile were not bordered landwards by an elevated closed basin containing a huge volume of sediment which could not be released until tapped by headward erosion.