The tectonics of the eastern Mediterranean: A geophysical review

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Abstract
A summary is given of present geophysical data available for the eastern Mediterranean, and the structural and tectonic history of the area is interpreted. The western Mediterranean is described in sufficient detail only for comparison.The region is delineated into plates on the basis of seismic activity at their margins. The African plate is moving northward relative to Europe with crustal destruction and underthrusting occurring along the Crete and Calabrian island arc systems. The intervening Aegean, Apulian, and Turkish plates are small and rapidly moving; they show intense seismicity at the boundaries. All observations (sediment deformation, gravity, magnetics and heat flow) suggest the existence of a zone of compression in the eastern Mediterranean.Anticlockwise rotation relative to Eurasia of parts of southern Europe occurred during an extensional phase in the west, permitting the development of new oceanic crust and accompanied by compression in the east. What little evidence there is suggests that the crust in the eastern Mediterranean is oceanic, but there are no magnetic stripes to indicate the orientation of the mid‐oceanic ridge from which it developed.