Hellenic orogeny

Sequence of the orogeny

In the late Jurassic, fragments of continental crust from the small content Cimmeria collided with Eurasia. Earlier, in the mid-Jurassic remnant oceanic crust formed ophiolites along the coast of Cimmeria. The oceanic crust of the Neotethys ocean subducted beneath the newly compounded Cimmerian-Eurasia continent, but obducted some more ophiolites onto the edge of the Cimmerian crust.

Tectonic activity resumed in the early Cenozoic when the small Apulia plate collided with the Cimmerian-Eurasian rocks causing intense imbrication and the deposition of the Pindos flysch. The final phase of the process came in the Miocene and Pliocene, during the Mesogean orogeny, when the combined Mesogean-African plate subducted beneath what is now Greece, the Aegean and parts of western Turkey. In the process, the Crete and southern Peloponessus core complexes were exhumed to the surface.