Space-Time Patterns of Magmatism along the Tethysides: A Preliminary Study

Five maps showing spatio-temporal evolution of magmatism along the Tethysides for the following time intervals: Late Carboniferous and Permian (320-248 Ma), Triassic and Early Jurassic (247-188 Ma), Middle Jurassic-Early Late Cretaceous (187-98 Ma), early Late Cretaceous-early Cainozoic (97-25 Ma), and late Cainozoic (24-0 Ma) reveal that convergent plate margin (subduction and collision) magmatism is a reliable guide for mapping suture zones. Where large (-1000 km), temporally persistent (>50 Ma) gaps exist in convergent margin magmatism, they indicate either the absence of a suture or later disruption, mainly by strike-slip faulting. At times of dominant subduction (late Paleozoic and Late Cretaceous-early Cainozoic), convergent magmatism was generally confined to continuous but narrow (-200 km) strips that did not cross sutures, whereas at times of dominant collision and intra-continental convergence (middle Jurassic-Early Cretaceous, late Cainozoic), its distribution was patchy, occurring in wide lump...