Les grands traints de l’évolution des chaînes de montagnes-Tethys et Pacifique, collision et subduction

Resumen

Mountain building involves subduction, collision and transform motion.

Alpine chain (or geosynclinal) born of the Tethys is example of collision. The Tethys spread in the Pangea, as a "Reconquest Tethys", from east to west, during the Triassic in the Mediterranean area and Jurassic in the Caribbean area, through the future central Atlantic. It closed during Cretaceous and Tertiary as a consecuence of the Atlantic opening which cut the previous one: in central Atlantic two openings are overprinted; but, in the west between the two Americas, and in the east between Eurasia and southern continents, shortening and orogenesis began. Due to the shape of continental margins there was generally simple collision with the formation of an oceanic suture and ophiolitic nappes thrusted over the continental margins; sometimes, like in Himalaya and Eastern Alps, hypercollision with the formartion of crustal shear plane in one of the continents... In order to continue, download the full paper in PDF.