Clarification of Tectonic and Geodynamic Models of the Alpine–Himalayan–Indonesian Mobile Belt Extremities Based on Matching Views about the Wide and Narrow Tethys Paleocean

Based on the available geological and geodetic data, it has been established that the structures of the Alpine–Himalayan–Indonesian mobile belt are oroclinally (horseshoe-shaped) closed at its western and eastern extremities. In the west, from the Atlantic Ocean, this closure is represented by the Bet–RIF arc and, in the east, from the Pacific Ocean, by the Band and Mindanao arcs. The presence of these closures means there is no structural connection between the mobile belt under discussion and the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, respectively. Thus, the existing plate-tectonic reconstructions, according to which the Tethys paleocean was a wide bay of the Pacific Ocean connected in the west with the Atlantic Ocean (wide Tethys), are in opposition to the facts. The Alpine–Himalayan–Indonesian mobile belt has to be considered an epigeosynclinal rather than an epioceanic structure.