Mediterranean Ridge
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The Mediterranean Ridge is a wide ridge in the bed of the Mediterranean Sea, running along a rough quarter circle from Calabria, south of Crete, to the southwest corner of Turkey, and from there eastwards south of Turkey, including Cyprus. According to tectonic theory, it is caused by the African Plate subducting under the Eurasian and Anatolian plates. As the African Plate moves slowly north-northeastward, it is plowing up the sediment layers of the Mediterranean, lifting them from the seabed, and in one area already, above sea level, causing the island of Cyprus.
In the far future it could grow into a long high mountain range if the continued northward movement of Africa obliterates the Mediterranean Sea.
Along the ridge have been found five sink-holes full of anoxic brine where Messinian evaporite deposits caught up in this ongoing orogeny have dissolved. [1]
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- ^ Exhumation of Messinian evaporites in the deep-sea and creation of deep anoxic brine-filled collapsed basins, from Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, University of Milan.
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