Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Alps continue fairly smoothly into the following related Alpine mountain ranges: the Apennines to the southwest, the Dinarides to the southeast and the Carpathians to the northeast. In the east the Alps are bounded by the Viennese Basin and the Pannonian Basin, where east–west stretching of the crust takes place.
The Alpine orogeny is caused by the continents Africa, Arabia and India and the small Cimmerian Plate colliding (from the south) with Eurasia in the north. Convergent movements between the tectonic plates (the African Plate, the Arabian Plate and the Indian Plate from the south, the Eurasian Plate and the Anatolian Sub-Plate from the north, and many smaller plates and microplates) had already ...
At places throughout the Alps the European basement was, after being detached of its cover rocks, tectonically uplifted in a late stage of the orogeny. Thus the "external massives" were formed, places where the Hercynian basement rock crops out in large anticlinoria at the southern (or in France eastern) side of the Helvetic zone.
The formation of the Alps was a segment of this orogenic process, [39] caused by the collision between the African and the Eurasian plates [42] that began in the late Cretaceous Period. [43] Under extreme compressive stresses and pressure, marine sedimentary rocks were uplifted, forming characteristic recumbent folds, and thrust faults. [44]
While smaller groups within the Alps may be easily defined by the passes on either side, defining larger units can be problematic. A traditional divide exists between the Western Alps and the Eastern Alps, which uses the Splügen Pass (Italian: Passo dello Spluga) on the Swiss-Italian border, together with the Rhine to the north and Lake Como in the south as the defining features.
The Helvetic nappes are thrust over the Infrahelvetic complex and the external massifs of the Alps (like the Aarmassif or Mont Blanc Massif). In Switzerland, Germany and Austria they are also thrust over the Molasse basin of the Alpine foreland. In turn, the Helvetic nappes were overthrust by the Penninic nappes from the south.
Pages in category "Geology of the Alps" The following 67 pages are in this category, out of 67 total. This list may not reflect recent changes. ...
The formation of the Alps started 135 million years ago at a strike-slip fault between the Penninic and Tethys Ocean. The Northern Calcareous Alps and Gurktal Alps formed as an orogenic wedge as sedimentary rocks were torn off basement rock that was subducted back into the mantle. The crust of the Penninic Ocean subducted around 85 million ...