The geology of Greece / Геология Греции

The Geology of Greece was my major teaching responsibility and research focus for about 40 years in the Department of Geology at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. My first book regarding the Geology of Greece published in 1986 (Eptalofos Publ. Co., Athens, 240 p., in greek) was focused in assisting the students of Geology to refine the basic aspects about the geology of Greece, incorporating the «theoretical» part together with the description of the geological formations and the overall geodynamic and paleogeographic evolution. It should be noted that the Geology of Greece is a complex and rather challenging task, incorporating a Late Paleozoic—Early Cenozoic orogenic history of a Tethyan segment and an active subduction and orogenic arc in the Eastern Mediterranean. My second book in 2015 (Patakis Publ. Co., Athens, 443 p., in greek) was revised and extended, aiming also in assisting all the geoscientists to learn about the more recent developments of geology and their implications in the geological structure of Greece. Thus, topics related to the tectono-stratigraphic terranes, seismic tomography, geodetic measurements (GPS), extensional detachments and thermo-chronometry were also included. Additionally, a long list of references was included, aiming to cite the publications that documented and demonstrated a variety of new data and interpretations regarding the geology of Greece and to assist readers in retrieving original data. Some more recent publications and review papers were also cited, in order to provide a more updated literature on several critical thematic issues. Representative geological maps for almost every tectonic unit of the Hellenides have been selected, modified and included in the description of the units. This publication is, in fact, the second edition of the 2015 book, published in english with important new topics, such as the separate new chapter on Neotectonics. Thus, the creation of the Aegean plate at the southern border of the Eurasian plate during Miocene, the distinction of the Northern and Southern Hellenides, the description of the extensional detachments, the mantle flow dynamics in the Mediterranean, the paleomagnetic rotations and the description of the submarine and active volcanoes were included as separate subchapters. Additionally, an updated list of cited references up to September 2019 was included. The evolution of ideas from the «geosyncline period» of the 1960s to the «plate tectonics period» of the 1970s and the «tectono-stratigraphic terranes period» of the 1980s and 1990s has been presented in several parts of the book, either regarding the general geological knowledge or the specialized applications in the geology of Greece. Another goal was to shed light on old publications in order to incorporate old novel papers published in greek or other foreign languages that formulated the general aspects of the geological evolution of Greece. Unfortunately, these papers are not usually accessible in the present-day Internet searching facilities and risk to be ignored by the younger scientists, who do not follow the «classical» library setting. This is more accentuated for the papers published in greek, which are often considered as grey literature. <...>