The closure of the Vardar ocean (the western domain of the northern Neotethys) from early Middle Jurassic to Paleocene time, based on surface geology of eastern Pelagonia and the Vardar zone, biostratigraphy, and seismic-tomographic images of the mantle below the Central Hellenides

Seismic tomographic images of the mantle below the Hellenides indicate that the Vardar ocean probably had a composite width of over 3000 kilometres. From surface geology we know that this ocean was initially located between two passive margins: Pelagonian Adria in the west and Serbo-Macedonian-Eurasia in the east. Pelagonia was covered by a carbonate platform that accumulated, during Late Triassic to Early Cretaceous time, where highly diversified carbonate sedimentary environments evolved and reacted to the adjacent, converging Vardar ocean plate. We conceive that on the east side of the Vardar ocean, a Cretaceous carbonate platform evolved from Aptian to Maastrichtian time in the forearc basin of the Vardar supra-subduction volcanic arc complex. The closure of the Vardar ocean occurred in one episode of ophiolite obduction and in two episodes of intra-oceanic subduction.