The Mediterranean Ridge is a wide

ridge A ridge is a long, narrow, elevated geomorphologic landform, structural feature, or a combination of both separated from the surrounding terrain by steep sides. The sides of a ridge slope away from a narrow top, the crest or ridgecrest, wi ...

in the bed of the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern Eur ...

, running along a rough quarter circle from

Calabria Calabria is a Regions of Italy, region in Southern Italy. It is a peninsula bordered by the region Basilicata to the north, the Ionian Sea to the east, the Strait of Messina to the southwest, which separates it from Sicily, and the Tyrrhenian S ...

, south of

Crete Crete ( ; , Modern Greek, Modern: , Ancient Greek, Ancient: ) is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the List of islands by area, 88th largest island in the world and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, fifth la ...

, to the southwest corner of

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

. It is an accretionary wedge caused by the African Plate subducting under the Eurasian and Anatolian plates. As the African Plate moves slowly north-northeastward, the

sedimentary rock Sedimentary rocks are types of rock (geology), rock formed by the cementation (geology), cementation of sediments—i.e. particles made of minerals (geological detritus) or organic matter (biological detritus)—that have been accumulated or de ...

s covering the Mediterranean seafloor are being affected by active shortening, involving both

thrust fault A thrust fault is a break in the Earth's crust, across which older rocks are pushed above younger rocks. Thrust geometry and nomenclature Reverse faults A thrust fault is a type of reverse fault that has a dip of 45 degrees or less. I ...

ing and folding, lifting them up and forming the ridge. Along the ridge, five deep basins full of anoxic brine have been found (including the L'Atalante basin), where Messinian evaporite deposits of brine caught up in this ongoing

orogeny Orogeny () is a mountain-mountain formation, building process that takes place at a convergent boundary, convergent plate margin when plate motion compresses the margin. An or develops as the compressed plate crumples and is tectonic uplift, u ...

have dissolved.

Incipient collision with Africa

The central section of the Mediterranean Ridge shows evidence for the initial stages of collision with the

Cyrenaica Cyrenaica ( ) or Kyrenaika (, , after the city of Cyrene), is the eastern region of Libya. Cyrenaica includes all of the eastern part of Libya between the 16th and 25th meridians east, including the Kufra District. The coastal region, als ...

peninsula. Detailed bathymetric mapping using multibeam echosounders, shows that deformation within the "outer zone" (southernmost part) of the ridge, is much more intense against the promontory, with out-of-sequence thrusting replacing the gentle folding observed further east and west.

References

Regional geology Orogeny Landforms of the Mediterranean Sea Plate tectonics {{tectonics-stub

Incipient collision with Africa

See also

References