Site is Loading, Please wait...

Tag: Tethys

Pangea

Reconstruction of the supercontinent Pangea (or Pangaea) that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras.

Reconstruction of the supercontinent Pangea (or Pangaea) that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras. During the Carboniferous approximately 335 Million years ago, Pangea assembled from the earlier continental fragments of Gondwana, Euramerica, and Siberia, and started to break apart about 200 Million years ago, at the end of the Triassic and beginning of the Jurassic. Pangea extended between Earth’s northern and southern polar regions and was surrounded by the Panthalassa Ocean and the Paleo-Tethys and subsequent Tethys Oceans. Pangea is the most recent supercontinent to have existed and the first that was reconstructed by geoscientists.

Here shown is not only the position of the continents, but also the reconstruction of the Earth’s surface paleotopography and paleobathymetry from Scotese & Wright (2018) paleo-digital elevation model (PaleoDEMS). The Scientific colour map ‘bukavu‘ is used to represent data accurately and to all readers.

  • Dark and light background versions
  • Transparent background
  • Perceptually uniform colour map
  • Colour-vision deficiency friendly
  • Readable in black&white
Download

Faulty or missing link? – Please report them via a reply below!

Anatolia subduction zone initiation

The Anatolia subduction zone (or ‘Anatolian Neotethys’) started at around 104 Ma as a consequence of fracture zone inversion.

Schematic tectonic reconstruction of the Anatolia subduction zone initiation event (modified from van Hinsbergen et al., 2019a,b). Shown are the new subduction zone (pink line), other active subduction zones (solid purple lines), and transform faults (red dashed lines).

The Anatolia subduction zone (also referred to as ‘Anatolian Neotethys’ or ‘southern strand of the Neotethys’) started at around 104 Ma. It initiated within the oceanic lithosphere of the Neotethys and, together with the Oman SZI event, represents the western Neotethyan subduction system. SZI has been proposed to be the consequence of fracture zone inversion (van Hinsbergen et al., 2019a, Maffione et al., 2017), though this remains a matter of debate (Agard et al., 2007; van Hinsbergen et al., 2019a).

At the time of SZI, both downgoing and overriding plates were oceanic lithosphere of the Neotethys, the overriding oceanic lithosphere has also been termed ‘Anadolu plate’ (Gürer et al., 2016). The final stages of subduction of the downgoing plate saw the arrival and accretion of continental lithosphere (the Africa-Arabia plate), including several microcontinents of ‘Greater Adria’ (Gaina et al., 2015; van Hinsbergen et al., 2019b).

For more details on the geologic record, corresponding plate reconstruction, and seismic tomography, see the SZI Database.

  • Creators: Fabio Crameri, Valentina Magni, Matthew Domeier, Ágnes Király, Grace Shephard
  • This version: 17.06.2025
  • License: Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)
  • Specific citation: These graphics from Crameri et al. (2020) are available via the open-access s-ink.org repository.
  • Related reference: Crameri, F., V. Magni, M. Domeier, G.E. Shephard, K. Chotalia, G. Cooper, C. Eakin, A.G. Grima, D. Gürer, A. Király, E. Mulyukova, K. Peters, B. Robert, and M. Thielmann (2020), A transdisciplinary and community-driven database to unravel subduction zone initiation, Nature Communications, 11, 3750. doi:10.1038/s41467-020-17522-9
  • Seismic tomography VoteMap included
  • Perceptually-uniform colour map
  • Colour-vision deficiency friendly
  • Readable in black&white
Download graphics
Access the data

Faulty or missing link? – Please report them via a reply below!

Oman subduction zone initiation

The Oman subduction zone, together with the Anatolian subduction zone, started at around 104 Ma as a consequence of fracture zone inversion.

Schematic tectonic reconstruction of the Oman SZI event (modified from van Hinsbergen et al., 2019a,b). Shown are the new subduction zone (pink line), other active subduction zones (solid purple lines), and transform faults (red dashed lines).

The Oman subduction zone, together with the Anatolian subduction zone, formed the Western Neotethyan subduction system. The Oman SZI event was widely thought to have initiated along, or in the vicinity of, a Neotethyan mid-oceanic ridge (e.g., Boudier et al. 1988; Nicolas et al., 2000; Duretz et al., 2016). Recently, it has been suggested that the subduction zone initiated along a fracture zone, located parallel to the Arabian continent (van Hinsbergen et al., 2019a; Maffione et al., 2017).

The subduction zone seems to have initiated at 104 Ma (e.g., Guilmette et al., 2018) within Neotethyan oceanic lithosphere, similar to the Anatolia SZI (see Anatolia SZI event in the SZI database), but with the opposite vergence (van Hinsbergen et al., 2019a). At the time of SZI, both the downgoing and overriding plates were oceanic lithosphere of the Neotethys. In the case of Oman (and in contrast to the Anatolian subduction zone), the ‘Anadolu plate’ (Gürer et al., 2016) subducted below the Africa-Arabia continental plate (i.e., ‘Greater Adria’ of Gaina et al., 2015 and van Hinsbergen et al., 2019a,b). The subduction zone later terminated and resulted in widespread ophiolite obduction onto the Arabian continental margin in the Late Cretaceous at 70 ± 5 Ma, represented by the Semail ophiolite of Oman, the Kermanshah and Neyriz ophiolites of Iran, the Baer Bassit ophiolite of Syria, the Hatay ophiolites of SE Turkey, and the Troodos ophiolite of Cyprus (Koop and Stoneley, 1982; Searle and Cox, 1999; Nicolas et al., 2000; Al-Riyami et al., 2002; Searle et al., 2004; Dilek and Furnes, 2009; Homke et al., 2009; Agard et al., 2011).

For more details on the geologic record, corresponding plate reconstruction, and seismic tomography, see the SZI Database.

  • Creators: Fabio Crameri, Valentina Magni, Matthew Domeier, Ágnes Király, Grace Shephard
  • This version: 17.06.2025
  • License: Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)
  • Specific citation: These graphics from Crameri et al. (2020) are available via the open-access s-ink.org repository.
  • Related reference: Crameri, F., V. Magni, M. Domeier, G.E. Shephard, K. Chotalia, G. Cooper, C. Eakin, A.G. Grima, D. Gürer, A. Király, E. Mulyukova, K. Peters, B. Robert, and M. Thielmann (2020), A transdisciplinary and community-driven database to unravel subduction zone initiation, Nature Communications, 11, 3750. doi:10.1038/s41467-020-17522-9
  • Seismic tomography VoteMap included
  • Perceptually-uniform colour map
  • Colour-vision deficiency friendly
  • Readable in black&white
Download graphics
Access the data

Faulty or missing link? – Please report them via a reply below!

Cenozoic paleogeography (animation)

Global paleogeography with zoomed in figures showing the evolution of oceanic gateways active during the Cenozoic time.

Global paleogeography of Straume et al. (2020) with zoomed in figures showing the evolution of oceanic gateways active during the Cenozoic time (66 – 0 Ma).

  • High-res video format
  • Perceptually uniform colour map
  • Colour-vision deficiency friendly
  • Readable in black&white
Download

Faulty or missing link? – Please report them via a reply below!

Exit mobile version
%%footer%%