are, together with some other small oceanic basins, called Alpine Tethys Ocean or Western Tethys Ocean. The Tethys Ocean itself is sometimes considered to have begun east of the Apulian and African plates, but normally the Alpine Tethys is regarded as part of it. Subdivision in the Eastern Alps The following Penninic lithologies are found in the Hohe Tauern window, the Kőszeg Mountains and at the northern boundary of the Alps: old Precambrian and Cambrian gneisses of continental basement. various Paleozoic metamorphic rocks (ophiolites, schists) younger Hercynic (late Carboniferous) granite intrusions (turned into gneisses by deformation in the Alpine orogeny). Triassic and Jurassic sedimentary rocks and ophiolites, turned into calcareous phyllites and green schists by metamorphism. Stratigraphically on top of these Cretaceous to early Tertiary flysch deposits are found sometimes. It is not clear which of these units can be correlated with the Penninic units of the Western Alps. Some of them are clearly Penninic, some clearly Helvetic, and some are disputed. The oceanic trench deposits of the Penninic nappes are found through the Alps and called Bündner slates. What is clear at least is that the Briançonnais terrane is not found in the Eastern Alps. The conclusion that can be drawn is that the microcontinent wedged out in the east in the Alpine Tethys Ocean. Some authors suggest the ophiolites that occur at the Hohe Tauern window must be correlated with the Piemont-Liguria terrane of the western Alps, because trench deposits such as radiolarites occur in both. References Description of the Western and Central Alps on the website of S.M. Schmid Description of the geology of Austria on the website of Christof Kuhn Geology of the Alps Structural geology Geology of Switzerland Geology of Austria Geology of Germany Geology of France