Rhenish Massif

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Rhenish Massif
Haupteinheitengruppen Rheinisches Schiefergebirge.png
Highest point
Peak Großer Feldberg
Elevation 2,881 ft (878 m)
Geography
Countries Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and France
States North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse
Parent range Central Uplands
Geology
Orogeny Variscan (Hercynian)
Rock age(s) Devonian and Carboniferous
Rock type metamorphic rock
Satellite image with outlines (grey-drawn outline) of the Rhenish Slate Mountains (green trees). Above left the mouth of the Rhine into the North Sea. RSG-NASA-250 Ausschnitt mit Umriss.jpg
Satellite image with outlines (grey-drawn outline) of the Rhenish Slate Mountains (green trees). Above left the mouth of the Rhine into the North Sea.

The Rhenish Massif, [1] Rhine Massif [2] or Rhenish Uplands [3] (German : Rheinisches Schiefergebirge, pronounced [ˈʁaɪnɪʃəsˈʃiːfɐɡəˌbɪʁɡə] : 'Rhenish Slate Uplands') is a geologic massif in western Germany, eastern Belgium, Luxembourg and northeastern France. It is drained centrally, south to north by the river Rhine and a few of its tributaries.

Contents

West of the indent of the Cologne Bight it has the Eifel and the Belgian and French Ardennes; east is its greatest German component, the Süder Uplands. The Hunsrück hills form its southwest. The Westerwald is an eastern strip. The Lahn-Dill area is a small central zone and the Taunus Mountains form the rest, the south-east.

The massif hosts the Middle Rhine Valley (Rhine Gorge), a UNESCO World Heritage site linked to the lowest parts of the Moselle (German : Mosel, Luxembourgish : Musel).

Geology

Geological sketch of the Rhenish Massif Geology of the Rhenish Massif.png
Geological sketch of the Rhenish Massif

Geologically the Rhenish Massif consists of metamorphic rocks, mostly slates (hence its German name), deformed and metamorphosed during the Hercynian orogeny (around 300 million years ago). Most of the massif is part of the Rhenohercynian zone of this orogeny, that also encompasses the Harz further east and Devonian rocks of Cornwall (southwestern England).

Most rocks in the Rhenish Massif were originally sediments, mostly deposited during the Devonian and Carboniferous in a back-arc basin called the Rhenohercynian basin. In some places in the Ardennes, even older rocks of Cambrian to Silurian age crop out as massifs overlain by Devonian slates. These older rocks form smaller massifs of their own (Stavelot, Rocroi, Givonne and Serpont). In the eastern Rhenish Massif some very limited outcrops in the Sauerland show rocks of Ordovician and lower Siliurian age. Further Ordovician rock exposures are part of the southern Taunus.

The second rock type are Tertiary and Quaternary igneous rocks, which most prominently occur in the Vulkaneifel, the Westerwald and the Vogelsberg. The volcanic rocks have been linked to a mantle plume that, due to its low density and buoyancy, uplifted the entire region during the last few hundred thousand years, as measured from the present elevation of old river terraces. [4]

Mountain and hill ranges

The mountain and hill ranges within the Rhenish Massif - some with maximum height in metres above sea level (NN)) are given below:

West of the Rhine from north(west) to south(east)

East of the Rhine from north(west) to south(east)

References

  1. Vogel, Miller and Greiling (1987).
  2. Dickinson, Robert E (1964). Germany: A regional and economic geography (2nd ed.). London: Methuen, pp. 428-459. ASIN   B000IOFSEQ.
  3. Elkins, T H (1972). Germany (3rd ed.). London: Chatto & Windus, 1972, pp. 226-236. ASIN   B0011Z9KJA.
  4. Garcia-Castellanos, D., S.A.P.L. Cloetingh & R.T. van Balen, 2000. Modeling the middle Pleistocene uplift in the Ardennes-Rhenish Massif: Thermo-mechanical weakening under the Eifel? Global Planet. Change 27, 39-52, doi:10.1016/S0921-8181(01)00058-3

Literature

51°00′N7°50′E / 51.000°N 7.833°E / 51.000; 7.833