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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Late Hercynian Plate and Intraplate Processes within Europe

subject

description

The Hercynian orogenic belt of Europe consists of a central crystalline ridge which is accompanied on both sides by a rather unmetamorphosed foldbelt. It is speculated that the crystalline ridge represents some kind of island arc system underlain by a segment of continental crust. On both sides this island arc system was involved in subduction of oceanic crust, first of the Mideuropean Sea in the North and then of the Paleotethys in the South. When the continental areas to the north and south of the oceanic areas (North America/Northern Europe and Africa) finally got involved in the subduction processes, continent/continent collision took place on both sides of the island arc system. The two subduction zones encroached, from the Visean onwards, onto the shelf areas of the two large continental plates. As a consequence the Rhenohercynian foldbelt formed on the shelf area of North America/Northern Europe (E Sudetic Mts., Harz, Rheinische Schiefergebirge, SW England, S Portugal, and S Appalachians) whereas in the South the foldbelt formed on the African shelf along the Carnian Alps, the Montagne Noire, northern Iberia, and finally southeastern Morocco and the eastern Mauritanides.