India-Eurasia Collision Begins Closing the Neo-Tethys Ocean

Around 50 million years ago, the Indian plate collided with the Eurasian plate along what is now the Indus-Tsangpo suture zone in southern Tibet, initiating the closure of the Neo-Tethys Ocean. Ophiolite sequences and the termination of marine sedimentation on India's northern margin date this contact to approximately 50.2 million years ago. The collision launched the Alpine-Himalayan orogeny, raising mountain chains from the Pyrenees to the Himalayas and reorganizing global ocean circulation patterns.