- By Surarika Das
- Sun, 12 Apr 2026 01:52 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
The Strait of Hormuz has been gaining attention for the last few days. The US-Israel-Iran war has shifted the focus towards the water body.The geopolitical tension has disrupted shipping through the oil route. However, the intriguing point about the strait is that it's a part of an ocean that disappeared millions of years ago.
To understand the entire concept, one needs to see how the Earth looked 250 million years ago. There were no continents in the contemporary perspective. Rather, there were two gigantic landmasses, Gondwana in the south and Laurasia in the north, separated by the Tethys Sea.
The Earth's tectonic plates started to shift over millions of years. Slowly drifting towards the north, the Arabian Plate struck the Eurasian Plate. Then, it became compressed between these enormous landmasses, and portions of the Tethys Sea started to perish.
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Two significant things were carried out by this incident.
When the Earth's crust crumpled under strain, it first produced the Zagros Mountains in modern-day Iran. Second, it reduced the remaining sea to a small canal that is today known as the Strait of Hormuz.
Therefore, the Strait is more than just a fragmented space between landmasses. Compressed over millions of years into a small exit point between the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea, it is the last discernible vestige of a much larger ocean.
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The Indian and Eurasian plates started colliding between 40 and 50 million years ago. These two were both continental-thick, buoyant, and unyielding, in contrast to oceanic plates that slide beneath one another. They folded rather than sank.
What got caught between them? Tethys Sea Floor
Marine sediment, including limestone, shells, and ancient seabed deposits, was squeezed, folded, and forced upward in layers. This eventually gave rise to the Himalayas.
This explains why marine fossils can still be found high in these mountains today. Once, the rocks at the summit of Mount Everest were at the ocean's bottom.
Taking a broader view makes the connection between the Himalayas and the Strait of Hormuz more evident.
The Tethys Sea did not disappear overnight. Over tens of millions of years, it progressively closed in several locations.The collision of the Arabian Plate in the west caused the water to narrow into the Strait of Hormuz.
The collision of the Indian Plate raised the seabed into the Himalayas in the east.
Different results in the same ocean. It left behind a strategically important, narrow river in one location. In another, it produced the world's tallest mountain range.