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Structural analysis along 24 cross sections crosscutting several windows in the central Hellenides provides the sense of nappe movements as well as the location of destroyed oceans lying between the Apulian and Eurasian continents from the Mesozoic. Orogeny took place in two phases: The first phase, “the Eo‐Hellenic” phase, was initiated by convergence of the Apulian and Pelagonian plates with west directed subduction and closure of the Pindos Ocean. Late Jurassic obduction of oceanic lithosphere over the western margin of the Pelagonian plate was followed by footwall imbrication, mylonites and sheath folds. During the late Cretaceous, uplift was associated with ductile normal faulting at depth and tectonic unroofing at shallow crustal levels. The second phase, “the Meso‐Hellenic” phase, comprised the closure of the Ambelakia Ocean at the eastern margin of the Pelagonian plate and continental subduction along the eastern margin of the Apulian plate. West directed subduction of the Ambelakia Ocean was associated with eastward directed ductile thrusting, folding and blueschist metamorphism. Blueschist formed within a simple duplex structure at depth and was subsequently overthrusted in the late Eocene onto the Olympos microcontinent, which acted as a major obstacle to the eastward directed nappe movements. Up to 150‐m‐thick cataclasites, kink folds and a spaced cleavage were formed during the late stage of the continental collision. “A subduction” along the eastern margin of the Apulian plate caused kink folding and reimbrication of the western parts of the Pelagonian basement. Since the Oligocene, the overthickened crust collapsed by means of low‐angle normal faults.

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During the migration of the back arc extension from central to western Greece the Corinth and Patras grabens are being formed. Orthogonal opening of these graben zones is accomplished by WNW listric normal faults and NNE transfer faults which produce an along-axis fragmentation. The listric faults show an increase in the dip of the fault plane westwards as well as a decrease in the maximum extension rate from 50% to the east in the Corinth graben, to 10% to the west in the Patras graben. Similarly, towards the west, P l i e u a t e r n a r y deposits become thinner whereas Pliocene sediments thin-out indicating a westward rift propagation. another orthogonal fault system consisting of NNW and ENE normal faults. These faults have been formed during general uplift behind the orogenic front which has been migrating from western Greece to the Ionian islands. T h e ENE-trending Rio graben which belongs to his orthogonal system connects the Patras graben to the Corinth graben and has subsequently been active as a transfer fault between them.Plio-Quaternary geodynamic processes in central continental Greece are quite similar to those earlier processes observed in the central Aegean region which reflect the initial stage of continental break-up behind a migrating orogenic front.As the back arc extension migrates westwards it is interacting or is being superimposed above