Alpine orogeny

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Alpine orogeny

The Alpine orogeny (sometimes also called Alpide orogeny) is an orogenic

Orogeny

Orogeny refers to natural mountain building, and may be studied as a tectonic structural event, as a geographical event, and a chronological event: orogenic events cause distinctive structural phenomena and related tectonic activity, affect certain regions of rocks and crust, and happen within a specific period of time....
phase in the Tertiary

Tertiary

The Tertiary is a a term for a Geologic time scale#Terminology 65 million to 1.8 million years ago. The Tertiary covered the time span between the superseded Secondary period and an out-of-date definition of the Neogene#Controversy....
that formed the mountain ranges of the Alpide belt

Alpide belt

The Alpide belt is a mountain range which extends along the southern margin of Eurasia. Stretching from Java to Sumatra through the Himalayas, the Mediterranean, and out into the Atlantic, it includes the Alps, the Carpathian Mountains, the mountains of Asia Minor and Iran, the Hindu Kush, the Himalayas, and the mountains of Southeast Asia....
. These mountains include (from west to east) the Atlas

Atlas Mountains

The Atlas Mountains are a mountain range across a northern stretch of Africa extending about 2,400 km through Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. The highest peak is Jbel Toubkal, with an elevation of in southwestern Morocco....
, the Pyrenees

Pyrenees

The Pyrenees are a mountain range in southwest Europe that form a natural border between France and Spain. They separate the Iberian Peninsula from the rest of continental Europe, and extend for about from the Bay of Biscay to the Mediterranean Sea ....
, the Alps

Alps

The Alps is the name for one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east; through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany; to France in the west....
, the Dinaric Alps

Dinaric Alps

The Dinaric Alps or Dinarides form a mountain chain in southern Europe, spanning areas of Slovenia, Croatia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and the Republic of Macedonia....
, the Hellenides

Pindus

The Pindus , mountain range is located in northern Greece and southern Albania. It is roughly 160 km long, with a maximum elevation of 2637 m ....
, the Carpathians, the Balkan

Balkan Mountains

The Balkan mountain range is a mountain in the eastern part of the Balkan Peninsula. The Balkan range runs 560 km from the Vrashka Chuka Peak on the border between Bulgaria and eastern Serbia eastward through central Bulgaria to Cape Emine on the Black Sea....
, the Taurus

Taurus Mountains

Taurus Mountains are a mountain range in southern Turkey, from which the Euphrates and Tigris descend into Syria and Iraq. It divides the Mediterranean Region, Turkey of southern Turkey from the central Anatolia#Anatolian plateau....
, the Caucasus

Caucasus Mountains

The Caucasus Mountains is a Mountain range in Eurasia between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea sea in the Caucasus region.The Caucasus Mountains are made up of two separate mountain systems:...
, the Alborz

Alborz

Alborz , also written as Alburz or Elburz, is a mountain range in northern Iran stretching from the borders of Armenia in the northwest to the southern end of the Caspian Sea, and ending in the east at the borders of Turkmenistan and Afghanistan....
, the Zagros

Zagros Mountains

The Zagros , are the largest mountain range in Iran and Iraq. They have a total length of 1 500 km from western Iran, on the border with Iraq to the southern parts of the Persian Gulf....
, the Hindu Kush

Hindu Kush

The Hindu Kush is a mountain range located in eastern and central Afghanistan, northwestern Pakistan and northeastern India.The origin of the name Hindu Kush is disputed, despite its coinage apparently dating back no further than c.1330....
, the Pamir

Pamir Mountains

The Pamir Mountains are a mountain range in Central Asia formed by the junction or knot of the Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun Mountains, and Hindu Kush ranges....
, the Karakoram

Karakoram

Karakoram is a large mountain range spanning the borders between Pakistan, China, and India, located in the regions of Gilgit District, Ladakh, and Baltistan....
, and the Himalayas

Himalayas

The Himalaya Range or Himalayas for short , meaning "abode of snow" ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau....
. Sometimes other names occur to describe the formation of separate mountain ranges: for example Carpathean orogeny for the Carpathians, Hellenic orogeny for the Hellenides or the Himalayan orogeny

Geology of the Himalaya

The geology of the Himalaya is a record of the most dramatic and visible creations of modern plate tectonic forces. The Himalayas, which stretch over 2400 km between the Namche Barwa syntaxis in Tibet and the Nanga Parbat syntaxis in Pakistan, are the result of an ongoing orogeny ? the result of a collision between two continenta...
for the Himalayas

Himalayas

The Himalaya Range or Himalayas for short , meaning "abode of snow" ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau....
.

It also led to the formation of more distant, but smaller geological features such as the Weald-Artois Anticline

Weald-Artois Anticline

The Weald?Artois anticline is a large anticline, a geological structure running between the regions of the Weald in southern England and the Artois in northeastern France....
in Southern England/Northern France (the remains of which can be seen in the chalk ridges of the North

North Downs

The North Downs are a ridge of chalk hills in south east England that stretch for 120 miles from Farnham in Surrey to the White Cliffs of Dover in Kent....
and South Downs

South Downs

The South Downs is one of the four areas of Southern England Chalk Formation downland in southern England. They extend from the eastern side of Hampshire through Sussex, culminating in the cliffs at Beachy Head....
in southern England).

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Encyclopedia

The Alpine orogeny (sometimes also called Alpide orogeny) is an orogenic

Orogeny

Tertiary

Alpide belt

Atlas Mountains

Pyrenees

Alps

Dinaric Alps

Pindus

The Pindus , mountain range is located in northern Greece and southern Albania. It is roughly 160 km long, with a maximum elevation of 2637 m ....
, the Carpathians, the Balkan

Balkan Mountains

Taurus Mountains

Caucasus Mountains

Alborz

Zagros Mountains

Hindu Kush

Pamir Mountains

The Pamir Mountains are a mountain range in Central Asia formed by the junction or knot of the Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun Mountains, and Hindu Kush ranges....
, the Karakoram

Karakoram

Karakoram is a large mountain range spanning the borders between Pakistan, China, and India, located in the regions of Gilgit District, Ladakh, and Baltistan....
, and the Himalayas

Himalayas

Geology of the Himalaya

Himalayas

Weald-Artois Anticline

North Downs

The North Downs are a ridge of chalk hills in south east England that stretch for 120 miles from Farnham in Surrey to the White Cliffs of Dover in Kent....
and South Downs

South Downs

Isle of Wight

The Isle of Wight is an England island and county, located 3-8 km from the south coast of the mainland, in the English Channel. It is situated south of the county of Hampshire and is separated from mainland Britain by the Solent....
(where the Chalk Formation

Chalk Formation

The Chalk Group is a lithostratigraphy in the northwestern part of Europe. It is characterised by thick deposits of chalk, a soft porous white limestone, deposited in a marine environment during the Upper Cretaceous period ....
and overlying Eocene

Eocene

The Eocene Geologic time scale is a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Palaeogene period in the Cenozoic era....
strata are folded to near-vertical, as seen in exposures at Alum Bay

Alum Bay

Alum Bay is a sandy bay near the westernmost point of the Isle of Wight, England, within sight of The Needles. Of geological interest and a tourist attraction, the bay is noted for its multi-coloured sand cliffs....
and Whitecliff Bay

Whitecliff Bay

Whitecliff Bay is a sandy bay near the easternmost point of the Isle of Wight, England about 2 miles south-west of Bembridge and just to the north of Culver Down....
) and on the Dorset

Dorset

Dorset , is a Counties of England in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester, Dorset, situated in the south of the county at ....
coast near Lulworth Cove

Lulworth Cove

Lulworth Cove is a cove near the village of West Lulworth, on the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site in Dorset, southern England. The cove is one of the finest examples of such a landform in the world, and is a tourist location, with over 1 million visitors a year....
.

The Alpine orogeny occurred when the continents Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km? including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area....
and India

India

India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area country by geographical area, the List of countries by population country, and the most populous liberal democracy in the world....
and the small Cimmerian plate

Cimmerian Plate

The Cimmerian Plate is an ancient tectonic plate that comprises parts of present-day Anatolia, Iran, Afghanistan, Tibet, Indochina and Malay Peninsula regions....
collided (from the south) with Eurasia

Eurasia

Eurasia is a large landmass covering about 53,990,000 km? or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface . Often considered a single continent, Eurasia comprises the traditional continents of Europe and Asia, concepts which date back to classical antiquity and the borders for which are somewhat arbitrary....
in the north. Convergent movements

Convergent boundary

In plate tectonics, a convergent boundary or convergent plate boundary, also known as a destructive plate boundary , is an actively deforming region where two tectonic plates or fragments of lithosphere move toward one another and collide....
between the tectonic plates

Plate tectonics

Plate tectonics describes the large scale motions of Earth's lithosphere. The theory encompasses the older concepts of continental drift, developed during the first decades of the 20th century by Alfred Wegener, and seafloor spreading, understood during the 1960s....
(the Indian plate and the African plate

African Plate

The African Plate is a tectonic plate which includes the continent of Africa, as well as oceanic crust which lies between the continent and various surrounding ocean ridges....
from the south, the Eurasian plate

Eurasian Plate

The Eurasian Plate is a tectonic plate which includes most of the continent of Eurasia , with the notable exceptions of the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian subcontinent, and the area east of the Chersky Range in East Siberia....
from the north, and many smaller plates and microplates) began already in the early Cretaceous

Cretaceous

The Cretaceous , usually abbreviated K for its German translation Kreide, is a geologic period from circa to million years ago . In the geologic timescale, the Cretaceous follows on the Jurassic period and is followed by the Paleogene period....
, but the major phases of mountain building began in the Paleocene

Paleocene

The Paleocene or Palaeocene, "early dawn of the recent" is a geologic epoch that lasted from 65.5 ? 0.3 Mega-annum to 55.8 ? 0.2 Ma . It is the first epoch of the Palaeogene Period in the modern Cenozoic era ....
to Eocene

Eocene

The Eocene Geologic time scale is a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Palaeogene period in the Cenozoic era....
. Currently the process still continues in some of the Alpide mountain ranges.

The Alpine orogeny is considered one of the three major phases of orogeny in Europe that define the geology of that continent. The three are:

the Caledonian orogeny
Caledonian orogeny

The Caledonian orogeny is a mountain building era recorded in the northern parts of the British Isles, western Scandinavia, Svalbard, eastern Greenland and parts of north-central Europe....
that formed the Old Red Sandstone continent when the continents Baltica
Baltica

Baltica redirects here. For the Russian beer, see Baltika BreweriesBaltica is a name applied by geologists to a late-Proterozoic, early-Palaeozoic continent that now includes the East European craton of northwestern Eurasia....
and Laurentia
Laurentia

Laurentia , like all craton land, was created as continents moved about the surface of the Earth , bumping into other continents and drifting away....
collided
Continental collision

Continental collision is a phenomenon of the plate tectonics of Earth that occurs at Convergent boundary. Continental collision is a variation on the fundamental process of subduction, whereby the subduction zone is destroyed, mountains produced, and two continents sutured together....
in the early Paleozoic
Paleozoic

The Paleozoic or Palaeozoic Era is the earliest of three geology Era of the Phanerozoic Eon . The Paleozoic spanned from roughly , and is subdivided into six period ; from oldest to youngest they are: the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian period, Carboniferous, and Permian...
.
the Hercynian or Variscan orogeny
Variscan orogeny

The Variscan orogeny is a geologic mountain-building event caused by Late Paleozoic continental collision between Laurasia and Gondwana to form the supercontinent of Pangea....
that formed Pangaea
Pangaea

Pangaea, Pang?a or Pangea was the supercontinent that existed during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras about 250 million years ago, before the component continents were separated into their current configuration....
when Gondwana
Gondwana

Gondwana , originally Gondwanaland is the name given to a southern precursor-supercontinent and then as a remnant separated from Laurasia 180- during the breakup of the Pangaea supercontinent that existed about 500 to 200 Annum ago into two large segments. and the Old Red Sandstone continent collided in the middle to late Paleozoic
Paleozoic

The Paleozoic or Palaeozoic Era is the earliest of three geology Era of the Phanerozoic Eon . The Paleozoic spanned from roughly , and is subdivided into six period ; from oldest to youngest they are: the Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian period, Carboniferous, and Permian...
.
the Alpine orogeny itself.

Alpine orogeny

See also