EGU25-13565, updated on 15 Mar 2025
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-13565
EGU General Assembly 2025
© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Dynamic topography and landbridge formation during the Tethyan closure, in the Eastern Mediterranean : implication for biodiversity
Claudio Faccenna1,2, Eivind Straume3, Thorsten Becker4, Bernhard Steinberger1, Alexis Licht5, Andrea Sembroni2, Zohar Gvirtzman6, and Paolo Ballato2
Claudio Faccenna et al.
  • 1GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, Germany (faccenna@uniroma3.it)
  • 2Università Roma TRE (Roma, Italy)
  • 3NORCE Norwegian Research Centre & The Bjerknes Centre for Climate research, Bergen, Norway
  • 4UTIG & EPS at the Jackson School of Geosciences, UT Austin, USA
  • 5CEREGE, Aix-en-Provence, France
  • 6Institute of Earth Sciences, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

Plate tectonics and mantle dynamics drove the continental collision and topographic evolution in the Eastern Mediterranean – Tethyan realm leading to the closure of the Tethys Seaway, which once linked the Atlantic and Indo-Pacific oceans. The closure led to reorganizations in ocean circulation, diversification and migration of marine and terrestrial species, and climatic changes. In this Review, we evaluate the causes and consequences of closing the Tethys Seaway and quantify the processes generating topography in this region for the last 66 million years. We discuss how the arrival of the Afar Plume and northward mantle flow influenced dynamic topography and caused regional uplift and volcanic activity. Mantle convection ultimately established a permanent land bridge between Africa and Asia in the Miocene, enabling one of the greatest faunal interchanges of the Cenozoic.

How to cite: Faccenna, C., Straume, E., Becker, T., Steinberger, B., Licht, A., Sembroni, A., Gvirtzman, Z., and Ballato, P.: Dynamic topography and landbridge formation during the Tethyan closure, in the Eastern Mediterranean : implication for biodiversity, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-13565, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-13565, 2025.