Logo
Prev
Bookmark
Rotate
Print
Next
Contents
All Pages
Related Articles
Browse Issues
Help
Search
Home
'
National Geographic : 1982 Dec
Contents
Continental pileup sculpts asea COLLIDING, buckling, andfracturing,continentalplates that created the Mediterranean'scomplex topography resemble a geologicjigsaw puzzle, here viewed toward the west in three scenarios.About 44 million years ago (below) Africa's plate (i) drove north into Iberia (2), separatedby a fault from Europe. A chunk of northernAfrica split off to form anotherplate called Apulia (3), abutting both Iberiaand Europe. By nine million years ago (4) the multiplatepileup built most of today'sfeatures (right), with some profiled in cross section at top. PartAfrica, partIberia,Sicily (5) rises as a wideningAtlantic Ocean (6) shoves Iberiaand Africa towardApulia. The African plate, forced beneathIberia,creates molten rock, tapped by volcanoes such as the Aeolian Islands (7). The Apennine Mountainsof centralItaly (8) mark the collisionof the Apulianplate and Iberia,thus forming most of the Italianpeninsula.Trailingfragments of Iberia are isolatedto become Corsica (9) and Sardinia(o). Meanwhile,Apulia has also plowed north into Europe, thrustingup the greatarc of the Alps (II). To the south the Atlas Mountains (12) rearup along the coast of Africa as it collides with Iberia. A similarprocess continues today beneath the Aegean Sea, at lower right. Pushed north by Africa, ocean crust slides beneathAegea (13), a partially drowned landmass dotted by protruding islandssuch as Crete (I4). Africa's plunge stretches and thins Aegea andpulls it away from western Turkey (1s), itself driven in the same directionby another plate, the Arabian. New mountains will rise when Aegea and Africa meet millions of years from now. PAINTINGSBYNATIONALGEOGRAPHICARTISTWILLIAMH. BOND BASEDON DATAFROMB. BIJU-DUVAL,J. DERCOURT,ANDX. LE PICHON COMPILEDBYJOHNR. TREIBER,NATIONALGEOGRAPHICART DIVISION 710
Links
Archive
1983 Jan
1982 Nov
Navigation
Previous Page
Next Page