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The theory that the Tethys Sea existed was first proposed in 1893 by Eduard Suess, who used fossil records from the Alps and Africa. He named it after the Greek sea goddess Tethys. The development of the theory of plate tectonics later disproved or overrode many parts of Suess's theory, even determining the existence of an earlier body of water called the Tethys Ocean. However, Suess's overall concept was still relatively accurate and remarkably imaginative for its day. He is credited with the discovery of both the Tethys Sea and the Tethys Ocean. Now oil geologists depend on what was once a mere postulation.
According to current theory the continent of Pangea had a deep sinus, when a long seafloor spreading ridge began to develop along its lower edge, reaching from the Australian Plate in the farthest southeast and running northeastwards. In the late Jurassic (150 Ma), the rift began to splinter Laurasia and Gondwana into masses resembling the continents we see today. Africa slowly began turning counter-clockwise, and IndiaThe Republic of India is a large multicultural country in South Asia, with a population of over one billion. The Indian economy is the fourth largest in the world, in terms of purchasing power parity, and is the world's second-fastest growing economy. sped northeastward over the eastern end of the Tethys Ocean. As that part of the Tethys Ocean disappearedSubduction zones exist where an oceanic plate collides with a continental plate and sinks below the latter plate into the asthenosphere. Oceanic lithospheric plates are subducted because of their higher density. The oceanic plate sometimes gets melted bec under CimmeriaThe Cimmerian plate is an ancient tectonic plate that comprises parts of present-day Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, and Tibet. The Cimmerian plate was formerly part of the ancient supercontinent of Pangaea. Pangaea was shaped like a vast "C", facing east, and, the relatively shallow area in the western end of the Tethys Ocean opened onto the growing Atlantic Ocean, forming the Tethys Sea (or 'Tethys Seaway'). Over the next 120 million years, the Tethys Sea shrank further, closed in an all sides by Africa, Saudi ArabiaThe Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a country on the Arabian Peninsula. It borders Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen, with the Persian Gulf to its north-east and the Red Sea to its west. Al-Mamlakah al-'Arabiyah as-Sa'udiyah and Europe, eventually becoming the Black, Caspian and Aral Seas.
Like every science, geology is a continuously evolving system of theories, and the terms used to describe various pre-historic formations have fluctuated as more accurate theories have emerged. Even today, many sources use "Tethys Ocean" to refer to the "Tethys Sea" and vice versa.