This project is an offshoot of the International Geological Correlation Project (IGCP) 430, a UNESCO-IUGS program addressing links between plate collision responses and Tethyan geologic hazards.

The Tethyan collision belt extends from Gibraltar to Indonesia via the Mediterranean, Asia Minor, the Mid-East, the Himalaya, and southeast Asia.

The Tethys existed in Late Palaeozoic-Early Mesozoic as a wide ocean separating Gondwana to the south from Eurasia in the north. The Tethyan collision belt records geologic responses to the continued accretion to Eurasia of Gondwana continental fragments.

'TETHYS' is an interdisciplinary GIS database project funded by NSF. On completion the database will act as a tool for researchers, educators, and students studying continental plate collisions and a means to better characterize natural hazards in one of the world's most densely populated regions.

Our long-range goal is to build a system that enables fundamental advances in our understanding of collision-related responses - asthenospheric flow, thermal state, and partial melting, and lithospheric shearing, thrusting, rifting, and vertical motions.

A better understanding of these relationships is important to the interpretation of earthquake and volcano patterns at the Earth's surface and has the potential for radically changing our perceptions of continental lithosphere accretion.

http://geoinfo.geosc.uh.edu/Tethys