The Life of the New-Tethys Ocean

Guestbook

Professor Chris King passed away in early 2022, who used to be the chief editor of textbooks of the Geography Olympiad and the Earth Science Olympiad and devoted his life to geographical science popularization. In memory of Mr. King, the committee of 2022 IESO decided to hold the ELSI competition (Earth Learning Students’ Ideas), in which students were expected to produce videos or reels to show geological theories and phenomena. We Team China chose the life of the New Tethys Ocean as our video topic, presenting the Wilson cycle and other related geological concepts in the form of short plays, and gained the only gold medal in the world. (also called “excellent” in this program)

Here is the link of our ELSI project:
https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1fU4y1B7SS?share_source=copy_web&vd_source=b8454367b4642c5facffcc6bd2bc69a7

And the following article is our script. The script was mostly written by me, whilst other students were responsible for prop-making or action design. I also participated in play acting (I acted as the mantle plume!) and voice acting.

The life of the New-Tethys Ocean

Team China

Ziyan Fang, Chenghan Li, Jiaqi Li, Congyue Mao,
Jianing Sun, Zitong Wang, Yansen Zeng, Yunhan Zou

Prologue

“The roof of the world”, Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, is the highest plateau on the earth. However, it is reported that decades ago scientists have found marine fossils in the plateau, such as ammonites and ichthyosaurs. And their explanation for this discovery is even more weird – they say that there used to be an ocean covering the area where Qinghai-Tibet Plateau situates nowadays! How unbelievable! Well, today we are so glad to invite the ocean himself, Tethys, for a short interview about his life. Hello Tethys, would you like to introduce us something about your life?

“Hi, I am Tethys.”

*silence for a while//”two hundred years later…”

Well, sorry, I forgot that you could speak little English. Cool, so, you can show us by acting it out.

*Nodding

Action!

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STAGE A: Embryonic Ocean Basin (Stable Craton with a hot spot underneath)

The life of the neo-Tethys Ocean began in the Late Permian. Between the continent of Laua and Gondwana, a mantle plume appeared, which heated up the continents and caused them to swell upwards. A rift valley was created and a small ocean was formed in the middle, and that was our newborn Neo-Tethys Ocean。

STAGE B: Juvenile Ocean Basin (Early Rifting of a Continent)

As the continents continue to drift apart, the edges of both continents cooled down and therefore got heavier and sunk below the newly formed Tethys Ocean.

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STAGE C: Mature Ocean Basin (Full ocean basin)

In the early cretaceous (140Ma bp). A mature ocean basin of the Tethys had formed between two continental margins, and it was still spreading.

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STAGE D: Declining ocean basin (Subduction Zone)

In the end of Early Cretaceous, the Neo-Tethys Ocean began to shrink as the Indian plate moved northwards. A subduction zone has formed at the edge of continent and the sea began to close up.

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STAGE E: Terminal Ocean Basin (Closing Remnant Ocean Basin)

The formation of magma happened deep in the subduction zone and small mountains were built up.

STAGE F: Suturing (Continental Collision)

Eventually, in the Eocene epoch, as the Indian plate was inserted into the Eurasian plate, the great Tethys sea disappeared completely.

“I die!”

Haha yeah, you died.
In the place where he had once lived, the Qinghai-Tibet plateau uplifts, forming ‘the roof of the world’. And that is the brief introduction of the life of Tethys.

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Epilogue

Yes, as you can see, the Neo-Tethys Ocean has completely faded away on our earth. His magnificent two-hundred-million-year life was only a short moment in the 4.6-billion-year earth history. However, it is an undeniable fact that he had once created colorful habitats for plenty of species, playing an important role in the evolution of creatures. And for today’s human beings, its precious heritages –the Alps, the Himalaya, etc, also build a platform for us to explore more about our beautiful earth.