Mediterranean Sea 5.33 mya); "see" animation: Africa-Arabia colliding with Eurasia. Accordingly, the Mediterranean basin consists of several stretched tectonic plates in subduction which are the foundation of the Eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea. Various zones of subduction harbour and form the deepest and most majestic oceanic ridges, east of the Ionian Sea and south of the Aegean. The Central Indian Ridge runs East of the Mediterranean Sea South-East across the in-between of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula into the Indian Ocean. During Mesozoic and Cenozoic times, as the northwest corner of Africa converged on Iberia, it lifted the Betic-Rif mountain belts
Mediterranean Sea sea in two main subregions: the Western Mediterranean, with an area of about 850 thousand km (330 thousand mi); and the Eastern Mediterranean, of about 1.65 million km (640 thousand mi). A characteristic of the coastal Mediterranean are submarine karst springs or s, which discharge pressurised groundwater into the coastal seawater from below the surface; the discharge water is usually fresh, and sometimes may be thermal. The Mediterranean basin and sea system was established by the ancient African-Arabian continent colliding with the Eurasian continent. As Africa-Arabia drifted northward, it closed over the ancient Tethys Ocean which had earlier separated the