No oceanic Paleao-Tethys during Permian

[Florian]

Geologists have long known that Europe and Africa were not separated from the central Mediterranean Sea 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.
Only later, during the Mesozoic, a new extension, independent of Hercynian trends, led to the formation of a narrow oceanic type of seaway, whose remnants 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 agrees with an expansion of Earth and refutes plate tectonics-based models.