Greater Adria

English

Etymology

From greater +‎ Adria. From being first discovered in researching the geologic region called Adria.

Proper noun

Greater Adria

1. (paleogeography, paleogeology) A Greenland-sized paleo-microcontinent in the Neo-Tethys Ocean that rifted from the north of Africa portion of the supercontinent of Gondwana and accreted to the south of Europe portion of the supercontinent of Laurasia, and thence subducted.
   • 2019, Douwe J.J. van Hinsbergen, Trond H. Torsvik, Stefan M. Schmid, Liviu C. Maţenco, Marco Maffione, Reinoud L.M. Vissers, Derya Gürera, Wim Spakman, “Orogenic architecture of the Mediterranean region and kinematic reconstruction of its tectonic evolution since the Triassic”, in Gondwana Research‎^[1], →DOI, page 80:

     A northwestern ocean basin system was genetically related to the Atlantic Ocean, opened in Middle to Late Jurassic time, and is known as the Alpine Tethys Ocean, which include multiple branches, such as the Piemonte-Liguria Ocean between Greater Adria (i.e. modern Adria and the its restored portions now folded and thrusted in circum-Adriatic orogens), Iberia, and the Briançonnais continental fragment, and the Valais Ocean between the Briançonnais fragment and Europe

   • 2020 November 11, Sonia Yeung, Marnie Forster, Emmanuel Skourtsos, Gordon Lister, “Evidence for the Late Cretaceous Asteroussia event in the Gondwanan Ios basement terranes”, in Solid Earth‎^[2], preprint, European Geosciences Union:

     In their reconstruction model, the Ios basement, along with other tectonic units in the Cycladic islands and Crete, are all part of a subducted Greater Adria continental ribbon.

   • 2021 July, Ágnes Király, Francesca Funiciello, Fabio A. Capitanio, Claudio Faccenna, “Dynamic interactions between subduction zones”, in Global and Planetary Change, →DOI:

     Along most of the Alpine subduction the European plate subducted below Greater Adria, however, towards the west, Greater Adria under-thrusted the European margin forming the proto-Apennine slab […]

Usage notes

Before accreting to Laurasia, the microcontinent of Iberia rifted from Greater Adria. What was once Greater Adria now forms the Alps, Apennines, the Balkans, Anatolia, the Caucasus. Including the Iberian microcontinent, it also now forms Iberia, the Pyrenees, and Occitania.

Hypernyms

• microcontinent
• paleomicrocontinent
• continent
• paleocontinent