35th course of the international school of geophysics

The Mediterranean Sea seats on the slowly closing margin between Eurasia and Africa.  Within this setting, rapid arc migration and microplate motion appear to be engaging in “billard ball” tectonics, where subduction zones collide with continental blocks and dramatic change in rates and directions are the prevailing state. The active and abandoned subduction/collision zones of the Mediterranean, e.g., Alboran, Western Mediterranean, Calabrian, Carpathian, Appenine, Maghrebides, Dinaric, Hellenic, Cypriot, provide a suite of natural experiments on all stages in the tectonic evolution of microplate subduction systems.