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Collision, mantle convection and Tethyan closure in the Eastern Mediterranean

Nature Reviews Earth & Environment volume 6, pages 299–317 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

The Tethys Seaway once linked the Atlantic and Indo-Pacific oceans. Its gradual shallowing and closure impacted global ocean circulation, faunal diversification and climatic changes. In this Review, we evaluate the tectonic causes and the topographic changes across the Eastern Mediterranean over the past 66 Ma and explore the consequences of Tethys Seaway closure. Mantle convection led to collisional tectonic processes, mountain building and crustal thickening along the Tethyan realm. The Ethiopian flood basalts mark the arrival of the Afar plume at ~30 Ma, followed by northward-trending volcanic activity indicating that plume material had moved to northwest Arabia by ~20 Ma. Plume-induced mantle flow generated kilometre-scale uplift across East Africa, at ~8° N at ~35 Ma, and along Arabia and led to the formation of the Gomphotherium land bridge at 30° N, ~20 Ma. Afro-Arabian uplift contributed to the development of modern-like Asian monsoons, and the land bridge between Africa and Asia enabled one of the greatest faunal interchanges of the Cenozoic. The gradual shoaling and final closure of the Tethys Seaway likely facilitated the transition towards a stronger overturning circulation in the North Atlantic, contributing to the Cenozoic cooling trend. Future research should incorporate more detailed spatial and temporal uplift models into paleogeography and paleoclimate models to better simulate consequences for ocean circulation, climate and biogeographic dispersals.

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Fig. 1: Topography, kinematics and dynamics of the Mediterranean–Tethyan realm.
Fig. 2: Tectonic and geodynamic evolution of the collisional system.
Fig. 3: Paleogeography and volcanic activity during the Arabia–Eurasia collision.
Fig. 4: Evolution of paleodynamic topography, paleotopography and mantle cross-sections.
Fig. 5: Ocean circulation and mammal migration during closure of the Tethys Seaway.
Fig. 6: Geodynamic, topographic, climatological and biogeographical evolution of the Tethys system.

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Acknowledgements

E.O.S. acknowledges the support from NRC project 314371 (DOTpaleo). For part of this work, E.O.S. was also supported by a Jackson School of Geosciences PLATES-4D Post-Doctoral Scholarship. C.F. acknowledges discussion with L. Jolivet, P. Molin and E.Ş. Uluocak. C.F. funding supports are from Dipartimento di Eccellenza, Scienze, Università Roma TRE. B.S. acknowledges funding from the Innovation Pool of the Helmholtz Association through the Advanced Earth System Modelling Capacity (ESM) activity. T.W.B. was supported partially by NSF EAR 1925939. A.L. was supported by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 101043268).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. NORCE Norwegian Research Centre & The Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, Bergen, Norway

    Eivind O. Straume

  2. University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG) & Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences (EPS), Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    Eivind O. Straume & Thorsten W. Becker

  3. GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, Germany

    Claudio Faccenna & Bernhard Steinberger

  4. Department of Science, University of Roma TRE, Rome, Italy

    Claudio Faccenna, Andrea Sembroni & Paolo Ballato

  5. Oden Institute for Computational Engineering & Sciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

    Thorsten W. Becker

  6. Centre de recherche et d’enseignement de géosciences de l’environnement (CEREGE), Aix-Marseille Université, French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), French Research Institute for Development (IRD), French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE), Aix-en-Provence, France

    Alexis Licht

  7. Geological Survey of Israel, Jerusalem, Israel

    Zohar Gvirtzman

  8. Institute of Earth Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

    Zohar Gvirtzman

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Contributions

E.O.S. contributed with conceptualization, writing/editing, formal analysis, data curation and visualizations. C.F. contributed with conceptualization, writing/editing and visualization. T.W.B. and B.S contributed with conceptualization as well as writing/editing. A.S. contributed with writing/editing and data curation. Z.G., A.L. and P.B. contributed with writing and editing.

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Straume, E.O., Faccenna, C., Becker, T.W. et al. Collision, mantle convection and Tethyan closure in the Eastern Mediterranean. Nat Rev Earth Environ 6, 299–317 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-025-00653-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43017-025-00653-2

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