| Session Details | |
| Section | SE - Solid Earth Sciences |
| Session Title | Paleo-Tethys: an Open and Shut Case? |
| Main Convener | Dr. Randell Stephenson (University of Aberdeen, United Kingdom) |
| Co-convener(s) | Prof. Martin Flower (University of Illinois at Chicago, United States) Prof. Victor Mocanu (University of Bucharest, Romania) Dr. Nguyen Hoang (Geological Survey of Japan, Japan) |
| Session Description | Paleo-Tethys is the (conceptual?) Late Palaeozoic to Early Mesozoic ocean that was consumed and closed during variously named orogenies from Europe through Asia to Australia of this age. In this symposium, the convenors wish to have contributions documenting the opening of oceanic domains – rift and continental break-up related magmatism, marginal sedimentary basin development, preserved oceanic paleo-environments – as well as the their consumption and closure – subduction-accretion complexes, arc magmatism, the development of back-arc basins, emplacement of ophiolite complexes, and arc- and continent-continent collision, etc. The broad objective will be to ask whether Paleo-Tethys really existed as a contiguous oceanic domain or whether what we conventionally call Paleo-Tethys is better considered as a series of independent (even isolated?) deep basins, perhaps not all floored by oceanic crust, with a complex pattern of interrelationships in space and time. |