Ophiolites have been a stimulating and interesting topic of multidisciplinary research since their recognition as on-land exposures of fossil oceanic crust in the early 1960s. Since those times, the ideas on the tectonic setting of formation of ophiolites, mechanisms of their incorporation into continental margins, and their geodynamic significance in the formation and evolution of orogenic belts have significantly varied over the years. Over the past 30 years, a fundamental role for refining the general ideas on ophiolites has been played by multidisciplinary researches on ophiolites from the peri-Mediterranean orogenic belts (Tethyan ophiolites), which have produced a wealth of data and observations and have significantly improved our knowledge of the tectonic, magmatic and metamorphic processes through which the oceanic lithosphere is generated and transformed.
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