- Piemont-Liguria Ocean
The Piemont-Liguria basin or the Piemont-Liguria Ocean (sometimes only one of the two names is used, for example: Piemonte Ocean) was a former piece of
oceanic crust that is seen as part of theTethys Ocean . Together with some other oceanic basins that existed between the continentsEurope andAfrica the Piemont-Liguria Ocean is called the Western or Alpine Tethys Ocean.Plate tectonic history
The Piemont-Liguria Ocean was formed in the
Jurassic period, when thepaleocontinent sLaurasia (to the north, with Europe) andGondwana (to the south, with Africa) started to move away from each other. The oceanic crust that formed in between the two continents became the Piemont-Liguria Ocean. In theCretaceous period the Piemont-Liguria Ocean lay between Europe (and a smaller plate called the Iberian plate) in the northwest and theApulian plate (a sub-plate of the Africantectonic plate ) in the southeast.When the Apulian plate started moving to the northwest in the late Cretaceous, Piemont-Ligurian crust began to subduct beneath it. In the
Paleocene the Piemont-Ligurian Ocean had completely disappeared under the Alpulian plate andcontinental collision started between Apulia and Europe, which would lead to the formation of theAlps and the Apennines in theTertiary .Remains
Fragments of Piemont-Ligurian oceanic crust were preserved as
ophiolite s in thePenninic nappes of the Alps and theTuscan nappes of the Apennines. These nappes were subducted, sometimes to great depths in the mantle, before being obducted again. Due to the highpressure s andtemperature s at these depths, much of the material had been metamorphosed in the blueschist oreclogite facies .ee also
*
Geology of the Alps
*Pannonian Sea - also known as Paratethys Sea
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