Tectonic Evolution, Geology, and Geomorphology

The present-day major relief features of western Europe are to a great extent determined by the underlying geological structures, either passively or actively. To get a comprehensive picture of their morphological evolution and interrelations, this chapter provides an overview of the spatial and temporal characteristics of the larg-escale tectonic framework of the continent. After having described the west European landscape at the end of the Palaeozoic, to which time the oldest preserved landforms date back, an outline of the Mesozoic and Cenozoic history of the major tectonic domains follows. Finally, some denudation estimates highlighting the relationship between tectonics, erosion, and the resulting relief, will be discussed. The three main influences on the present-day topographic patterns are those of the Alpine orogeny, the Cenozoic West European rifting, and the imprint of Variscan structures. They combine within a regional stress field determined by the Africa–Eurasia collision and the Alpine push as well as the mid-Atlantic ridge push. Since the end of the Miocene, this stress field is characterized by a fan-shaped distribution of SHmax along the northern border of the Alpine arc. This gives way to a more consistent NW–SE to NNW–SSE direction of compression further from the chain (Bergerat 1987; Müller et al. 1992). Topographically, western Europe may be roughly divided into a series of belts parallel to the Alpine chain. The Alpine chain culminates in a number of peaks exceeding 4,000 m in elevation (4,810 m at Mont Blanc) but the average altitude is in the order of 2,000 m. To the north, the mountainous Alps are bordered by the Molasse foredeep basin whose surface makes an inclined plane descending northwards from c.1,000 m to c.300 m near the Donau River in the Regensburg-Passau area. To the north-west, the Molasse basin narrows between the Alps and the Jura Mountains and is occupied by several extended lakes inherited from Quaternary glacial activity. Next to the Molasse basin in the north and west is a wide belt of recently more or less uplifted areas between 200 and 1,000 m in elevation (and locally in excess of 1,000 m in the French Massif Central and the Bohemian massif).