Paleo-Tethys Ocean

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The Paleo-Tethys Ocean was an ancient Paleozoic ocean. It was located between the paleocontinent Gondwana and the so called Hunic terranes. These are divided into the European Hunic (today the crust under parts of Central Europe (called "Armorica") and Iberia) and Asiatic Hunic (today the crust of China and parts of eastern Central Asia). A large transform fault is supposed to have separated the two terranes.

Image of Paleo-Tethys Ocean, before the Cimmerian Plate moves north, which made the ocean closed, the Paleo-Tethys Ocean closed off about 180 mya. ~290 mya (Early Permian)

The Cimmerian plate starts to move northward, closing the Paleo-Tethys Ocean, while the Tethys Ocean begins to open from the south. ~249 mya (Permian-Triassic boundary)

The Paleo-Tethys Ocean began to form when the two small terranes rifted away from Gondwana in the late Ordovician, to begin moving toward the Old Red Sandstone Continent in the north, in the process the Rheic Ocean between Old Red Sandstone Continent and the Hunic terranes was to disappear. In the late Devonian however, a subduction zone developed south of the Hunic terranes, where Paleo-Tethys oceanic crust was subducted. Gondwana started moving north, in the process the western part of the Paleo-Tethys would close.

In the Carboniferous continental collision took place between the Old Red Sandstone Continent and the Europian Hunic terrane, in North America this is called the Alleghenian orogeny, in Europe the Variscan orogeny. The Rheic Ocean had completely disappeared, and the western Paleo-Tethys was closing.

By the Late Permian, the small elongated Cimmerian plate (today's crust of Turkey, Iran, Tibet and parts of South-East Asia) broke away from Gondwana (now part of Pangaea). South of the Cimmerian continent a new ocean, the Tethys Ocean, was created. By the Triassic, all that was left of the Paleo-Tethys Ocean was a narrow seaway. In the Early Jurassic epoch all Paleo-Tethys oceanic crust was subducted under the Cimmerian plate. A last remnant of Paleo-Tethys Ocean may be oceanic crust under the Black Sea.

Its ocean predecessor may be the Proto-Tethys Ocean, which was formed in the Late Precambrian era, and was closed during the Devonian and Carboniferous.

See also:

Reference

• Stampfli, G.M.; Raumer, J.F. von; & Borel, G.D.; Paleozoic evolution of pre-Variscan terranes: from Gondwana tot the Variscan collision in Geological Society of America special paper 364, p 263

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