The Alpine Orogeny
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In the beggining of the Alpine orogeny the situation was characterised by a broad, stable shelf platform of the African Continent, some rather mobile depressions like the Gavrovo, Tripolitza and Pindos thoughs and, separated by a crystalline anticline, the Vardar Basin which represented the central Mesozoic Tethyan ocean.
Together with the shelf region in the North , the width of the whole marine area might have amounted to some 1500 - 2000 km. According to the process of rifting in the Atlantic Ocean lateral and convergent movements occured which led, in the course of the closure of the Tethys and of the continental collision, to the Alpine orogeny.
Source: "Thera and the Aegean World I" (p. 26)
Author: H. Berckhemer, Institut fur Meteorologie und Geophysik, Frankfurt a.M., Germany