The Mediterranean region—a geological primer

Abstract

The last twenty-five years of geological investigation of the Mediterranean region have disproved the traditional notion that the Alpine-Himalayan mountain ranges originated from the closure of a single, albeit complex, oceanic domain-the Tethys. Instead, the present-day geological configuration of the Mediterranean region is the result of the creation and ensuing consumption of two major oceanic basins-the Paleotethys and the Neotethys-and of additional smaller oceanic basins within an overall regime of prolonged interaction between the Eurasian and the African-Arabian plates.