In numerous articles related to the geological time we have named many times Sea of Thetis. This is a sea that bathed the town of Cabra, making it a favorite destination for professional divers. In ancient times, this entire area was bathed by water known as the Tethys Sea or Tethys Ocean. It is a vast body of water and a center of life that marked the history and geography of our planet.
For this reason, we are going to dedicate this article to tell you all the characteristics and importance that the sea of Tethys had.
History of the sea of Tethys
The Tethys Sea was a large body of water roughly the size of Asia. It was formed approximately about 250 million years ago when all the Earth's continents were united in the super continent known by the name of Pangea. It's important to know that this supercontinent was formed and had a C shape. At that time, the Tethys Sea was the body of water that lay within the continent and surrounded it on three sides. It was an inland sea with warm, shallow waters. However, it was teeming with marine creatures, reefs, multicolored corals, natural islands, and more.
In short, we can say that the Sea of Thetis was a large body of water loaded with both animal and plant life and that it would surely be very famous if it were there today. Such is the amount of biodiversity that this ocean housed that many of the creatures that inhabited this sea are preserved today through fossils. All these fossils can be seen in the Jurassic Cabra Interpretation Center. This center is like traveling to the past and being able to see the biodiversity that existed in this ocean.
We know that the Sea of Thetis was the interior of the supercontinent, but the exterior was also surrounded by water. To this ocean was called Panthalassa and it is what is known today as the Pacific Ocean. Many people believe that the Pacific Ocean isn't as large as it seems, but we should know that it occupies almost a third of the entire surface of the planet.
Evolution of the sea of Tethys
We know that due to convection currents of the Earth's mantle there is a movement of the tectonic plates known as continental drift. This continental drift caused the fracturing of the super continent Pangea and the subsequent separation and displacement of the plates of the continents by the immensity of the ocean. We must know that the Mediterranean Sea began to form from the great sea of Thetis. Much of the biodiversity that exists in the Mediterranean Sea is inherited from the Tethys Ocean. However, It was not the same Mediterranean Sea that we know today, rather, it was a body of water that flooded part of the Iberian peninsula and Europe, which at that time was nothing more than an archipelago of islands.
With all the animals, plants, and reefs that existed in the ancient Mediterranean Sea, it was unknown what happened until science was able to discover it. The Mediterranean Sea dried up. Although it may seem incredible, it was completely real. This drying of the Mediterranean Sea occurred due to the movement of tectonic plates. These plates closed the Rif and Betic Straits, which were the only places where Atlantic water could enter the Tethys Sea. As a result, the entire Mediterranean basin we know today became an impressive white salt desert. All this salt was found in the dissolved water. This moment in the development of the planet and geological time it is known as the Messinian Salinity Crisis. This extraordinary and tragic episode led to the almost total extinction of all marine life.
Later, hundreds of years later, the Strait of Gibraltar opened, and the Mediterranean Sea began to fill again with water from the Atlantic Ocean. It was at this time that the Mediterranean Sea we know today was formed, considered the offspring of the ancient Tethys Sea.
Marine fauna
We are going to know what was the marine fauna that existed in the Sea of Tethys at that time. About 50 million years ago the first cetaceans originated. Cetaceans are the first mammals that have been able to fully adapt to aquatic life. It is one of the wonders of the evolution of species and today They include a large number of species that are distributed throughout the world's oceans. The Tethys Ocean was no exception. It was also home to thousands of unique marine reptiles that lived in both coastal and shallow waters. Let's take a look at some of the species:
- ammonites
- Mixosaurus Ichthyosaur
- Placodont Placodus
- Prolacertiform Tanystropheus
- Sauropterygian Nothosaurus
It is known that the town of Cabra and the Geopark that is located in the Subbética was once the home of all these marine creatures.
Why is that name?
Many people wonder why this sea was named this way. Eduard Suess was a renowned Austrian geologist who was passionate about geology. At the age of 44, he began to study plate tectonics in depth and published the book Die Enststehung der Alpen (The Encounter of the Alps). This book demonstrated that mountain ranges were formed by horizontal movements that deflect the land, contrary to what was thought at the time.
Edward Suess continued studying geology until he was 62 years old, where he once again surprised the scientific community, as he discovered that the fossils that were discovered in the mountains were actually sea creatures. Therefore, it was essential that there be a large body of water that he named the sea of Thetis.
The name Tethys comes from a titanic woman and water, hence the geologist named this ocean by this name.