| Abstract: | The geological data on the Mediterranean chains and basins are used to point out the constraints that they put on the location through time of oceanic versus continental lithosphere and on the successive relations between them. Emphasis is put on the rules and conventions which enable us to interpret the geological data in terms of plate tectonics and on the major disputed points for which a solution must be chosen.In the first part, the location of oceanic versus continental lithosphere is dealt with, using the data on the present-day basins, the ophiolites and the subduction processes. A Neogene age is retained for the Western Mediterranean and the surrounding continental blocks are considered to have been previously a part of Iberia. A Cretaceous age is retained for the Eastern Mediterranean; Apulia is considered as a part of the African plate except for this period. The Black Sea is considered as a back-arc basin formed mostly during the Upper Cretaceous. The ophiolites are used to locate the Mesozoic oceans; for the double ophiolitic belts of the Dinaro-Hellenides and the Taurides, the tectonic interpretations which minimise the number of oceanic basins have been retained. For the Kirsehir block of Turkey, the chosen solution locates a Jurassic ocean to the north and makes it disappear when a Cretaceous ocean opens to the south. Data on the subduction processes added to the information on these basins and led us to consider as oceanic the unknown basements of the Carpathian flysch and the Maghrebian flysch basins.The second part deals with the organisation of basins and platforms, emphasising the chronology of their formation and subsequent crushing. It furnished step by step constraints on the tectonic history of the system which is related to plate displacement.The general pattern derived from these data shows a wedge-shaped Tethyan ocean which disappeared mostly through repeated subduction below the eastern part of its northern margin. The Jurassic stage shows westward extension of the ocean between the Eurasian and African plates and ends with the Dinaro-Hellenic obduction; the Cretaceous stage shows a complete reorganisation including individual displacement of the Iberian, Apulian and Kirsehir sub-plates; the Tertiary stage shows the general collision between the renewed Eurasian and African plates and Neogene subduction of the basins which avoided collision. |
