Tethyan Trench Tethyan Trench The Tethyan Trench was an ancient oceanic trench that existed in the northern part of the Tethys Ocean during the middle Mesozoic to early Cenozoic eras. The Tethyan Trench formed when the Cimmerian Plate was subducting under eastern Laurasia, around 200 million years ago, in the Early Jurassic. The Tethyan Trench extended at its greatest during Late Cretaceous to Paleocene, from what is now Greece to the Western Pacific Ocean. Subduction at the Tethyan Trench probably caused the continents Africa and India to move towards Eurasia, which resulted in the opening of the Indian Ocean. When the Arabian
Sumatra Trench to 350 km. The width at Sumatra trench is controlled by sediment input and accretion rate and history. One distinguishing feature of the Sumatra subduction zone is that it has a relatively 120–140 km accretionary prism and a deep forearc basin (so does the rest of the whole Java subduction zone). However it does vary along the trench. The prism is broad and has a relatively shallow surface slope in the northern part, becomes steep and narrow at the central part, then becomes steep and narrow in the southern area. The inner part of the prism forms a NW-SE arc