Talk:Hellenic subduction zone

Location of subduction

This article presents the point of view that the subduction is under the Mediterranean Ridge. This is only one point of view. The issue is open. Maybe the subduction is under the trench. Maybe the trench is not disconnected from the subduction. I think the article need to be more general and include other points of view. Also more work has been done on detailing the slab under the Peloponnesus.Botteville (talk) 19:25, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

As discussed elsewhere, the article needs to mention the alternative, that some workers still describe the trench as the surface manifestation of the subduction zone. However, I would also include statements, such as "Although we call it the Hellenic subduction zone, this should not be confused with the Hellenic trench. This so-called trench is a forearc structure, as most of the basin to its south is covered by the huge eastern Mediterranean Ridge which is an accretionary complex" (Le Pichon et al. 2019), "The leading edge of the subduction zone is obscured beneath a thick package of sediments and is often misidentified as the more inboard bathymetric depressions known as the Hellenic troughs, but it is actually located outboard of the Mediterranean Ridge accretionary complex, south of Crete" (Gallen et al. 2014), "The front of subduction was misplaced in the Hellenic trench instead of south of the Mediterranean Ridge, that was not yet fully interpreted as an accretionary wedge" (Jolivet et al. 2013), "The term trench or Hellenic trench often used to refer to such bathymetric features is not optimal because it does not represent the superficial expression of an oceanic trench in the usual sense as initially thought" (Bocchini et al. 2018). Nowhere can I find any statement such as "contrary to some interpretations that the southern end of the Hellenic subduction zone lies beneath the Mediterranean Ridge as an accretionary complex, we reaffirm that the Hellenic trench is its surface expression" or anything along those lines. Almost all of those that continue to state that the Africa Plate subducts beneath the Aegean Sea Plate along the line of the Hellenic trench, forego mention of the Mediterranean Ridge. All the papers that I can find over the last 11 years that look specifically at the Mediterranean ridge describe it as an accretionary complex/wedge, in fact the largest and fastest growing in the world, a consequence of the huge thickness of sediments above the subducting crust. It's hard to see how the view of the trench as representing the subduction zone can be squared with the overwhelming consensus that the ridge is the accretionary complex. I'll try to come up with some wording that honours both these viewpoints, without straying into either synthesis or original research. Mikenorton (talk) 16:42, 21 January 2021 (UTC)