No oceanic Paleao-Tethys during Permian

[Florian]

Geologists have long known that Europe and Africa were not separated from central Mediterranean up to Central Iran at the end of the Paleozoic.
The sedimentary sequences are typical of a shallow sea extending from the periphery of the Hercynian orogen to the Arabo-African margin without any oceanic substratum.
It is only later during the mesozoic that an new extension, independent of Hercynian trends, led to the formation of a narrow oceanic type of seaway which remnant are the ophiolites observed in the Alpine Mesogean.

That is well summarized in a paper written in 1975 by Ion Argyriadis:
I. Argyriadis "Mésogée permienne, chaîne hercynienne et cassure téthysienne" Bull. Soc. Geol. Fr (7) XVII, n°1 p56-67

The absence of a vast oceanic Paleo-Tethys during the Permian is in agreement with an expansion of Earth and refute plate tectonics-based models.