Klippe

For the style of coin, see Klippe (coin).

Schematic overview of a thrust system. The shaded material is called a nappe. The erosional hole is called a window or fenster. The klippe is the isolated block of the nappe overlying autochthonous material.

A klippe (German for cliff or crag; plural klippen or klippes ^[1] ) is a geological feature of thrust fault terrains. The klippe is the remnant portion of a nappe after erosion has removed connecting portions of the nappe. This process results in an outlier of exotic, often nearly horizontally translated strata overlying autochthonous strata. ^[2]

Examples

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• Chief Mountain, Montana
• Mount Yamnuska, Alberta
• The Rock of Gibraltar
• Acropolis of Athens, Greece
• Bac Grillera, Catalonia, Spain. The nappe of which this klippe once formed part had its root in the northern part of the Pyrenees mountain range. ^{[3] [4]}

Klippes may also be found in the Pre-Alps of Switzerland and some of the isolated mountains in Assynt, Sutherland, in NW Scotland. ^[5]

• 
  Beckov Castle, Slovakia, perched on a limestone klippe
• 
  Serra de Bac Grillera, Catalonia, Spain (Lower Jurassic limestone resting on younger autochthonous Tertiary formations)

References

1. Plašienka, D. (2018). "The Carpathian Klippen Belt and types of its klippen – an attempt at a genetic classification". Mineralia Slovaca. 50: 1–24. eISSN   1338-3523.
2. DiPietro, Joseph A. (December 21, 2012). Landscape Evolution in the United States: An Introduction to the Geography, Geology, and Natural History. Newnes. p. 343. ISBN   9780123978066 . Retrieved 10 February 2016.
3. Marc Calvet, Yanni Gunnell, Bernard Laumonier. Denudation history and palaeogeography of the Pyrenees and their peripheral basins: an 84-million-year geomorphological perspective. Earth Science Reviews, 2021. See map, page 195. Online at insu.hal.science.
4. Estevez, A. (1968). Tectónica de las unidades alóctonas del Castell de Bac Grillera (Pirineo oriental, España). Acta Geológica Hispànica, t. III, núm. 5, p. 138-141. Online at revistes.ub.edu.
5. Whittow, John (1984). Dictionary of Physical Geography. London: Penguin, 1984, p. 294. ISBN   0-14-051094-X.