The Iberian Peninsula is rotating clockwise, scientists report

https://english.elpais.com/science-tech/2025-12-16/the-iberian-peninsula-is-rotating-clockwise-scientists-report.html

The Iberian Peninsula is rotating clockwise, scientists report

New data shows how the approach of the African and Eurasian plates is forcing displacement that will eventually close the Mediterranean Sea

MIGUEL ÁNGEL CRIADO
DEC 16, 2025 - 11:31 EST

The fact the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa are coming together has been happening for hundreds of thousands of years. But how this is taking place — the way the upper part of the Earth’s crust is moving — follows a path that is still being defined. New data shows that the land that today forms Spain and Portugal is rotating from east to west, in a clockwise direction. The tectonic plates on which both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar rest are moving closer together and compressing a little more each year. The very long-term consequences will be enormous: the Mediterranean will once again become a closed sea, Africa and Europe will be joined to the west, and what is now southern Iberia will either face the Americas or will have merged with the area of Ceuta, a Spanish exclave in North Africa.

…

The geologist highlights in a note the importance of the underwater mountain range connecting the two sides, the so-called Gibraltar Arc. “East of the Strait of Gibraltar, the crust of the Gibraltar Arc absorbs the deformation caused by the collision between Eurasia and Africa, thus preventing the stresses from being transmitted to Iberia,” the researcher says. But on the other side, west of the strait, “the direct collision between the plates occurs, and we believe this could affect the stresses transmitted to southwest Iberia, pushing Iberia from the southwest and causing it to rotate clockwise.”

… more …