New advances in the study of Tethyan Geodynamic System

Tethyan Ocean was initially proposed by Austrian geologist Eduard Suess in 1893. The study of the Tethyan evolution by European geologists has led to the development of modern geology, but not to the establishment of plate tectonics theory(Trümpy, 2001). With the progress in various studies, the concept of Tethys has evolved from a Mesozoic ocean into three long-term evolving oceans:Proto-Tethys, Paleo-Tethys, and Neo-Tethys (Figure 1), and their life cycles cover the entire Phanerozoic era (Wu et al., 2020).