The Western Carpathians () are a

mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have aris ...

and

geomorphological Geomorphology () is the scientific study of the origin and evolution of topography, topographic and bathymetry, bathymetric features generated by physical, chemical or biological processes operating at or near Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. Ge ...

province that forms the western part of the

Carpathian Mountains The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians () are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe and Southeast Europe. Roughly long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Ural Mountains, Urals at and the Scandinav ...

. The mountain belt stretches from the

Low Beskids The Low Beskids () or Central Beskids (; ; ) are a mountain range in southeastern Poland and northeastern Slovakia. They constitute a middle (central) section of the Beskids, within the Outer Eastern Carpathians. Since there are several tradit ...

range of the Eastern Carpathians along the border of

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

with

Slovakia Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...

toward the

Moravia Moravia ( ; ) is a historical region in the eastern Czech Republic, roughly encompassing its territory within the Danube River's drainage basin. It is one of three historical Czech lands, with Bohemia and Czech Silesia. The medieval and early ...

n region of the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

and the

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

Weinviertel The (; ) or ; "Area below the " is located in the northeast of Lower Austria. In the east, the borders Slovakia at the March River. In the south, it borders and , its limits being the Wagram, the Danube and the . Its western neighbor is ...

. In the south the

North Hungarian Mountains The North Hungarian Mountains (), sometimes also referred to as the Northeast Hungarian Mountains, Northeast Mountains, North Hungarian Highlands, North Hungarian Mid-Mountains or North Hungarian Range, is the northern, mountainous part of Hunga ...

cover northern

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

. The area of the Western Carpathians comprises about 70,000 km². The highest elevation is the

Gerlachovský štít Gerlachovský štít (, translated into English as ''Gerlachov Peak'', German: ''Gerlsdorfer Spitze'', Hungarian: ''Gerlachfalvi-csúcs''), informally referred to as Gerlach, is the highest peak in the High Tatras, in Slovakia, and in the Carpat ...

(2,655m) situated in the

High Tatra Mountains The High Tatras or High Tatra Mountains (; ; ,'' Vysoki Tatry''; ; ), are a mountain range along the border of northern Slovakia in the Prešov Region, and southern Poland in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship. They are a range of the Tatra Mountains ...

Geographical definition

Most of the perimeter of the Western Carpathians is quite sharply defined by valleys. To the northwest and north they are separated from the

Bohemian Massif The Bohemian Massif ( or ''Český masiv'', or ''Böhmisches Massiv'') is a geomorphological province in Central Europe. It is a large massif stretching over most of the Czech Republic, eastern Germany, southern Poland and northern Austria. Th ...

by the

Outer Subcarpathia Outer Subcarpathia (; ; ; ) denotes the depression area at the outer (western, northern and eastern) base of the Carpathian arc, including foothills of the Outer Western Carpathians and Outer Eastern Carpathians. It stretches from northeaste ...

and the

Lesser Poland Upland Lesser Poland Upland () is an upland located in southern part of Poland, in the historic region of Lesser Poland. It extends from the valley of the upper Vistula, between Kraków and Sandomierz, to Opoczno and Radomsko in the northwest. Average heig ...

; to the west the

Moravian Gate The Moravian Gate (, , , ) is a geomorphological feature in the Moravian region of the Czech Republic and the Upper Silesia region in Poland. It is formed by the depression between the Carpathian Mountains in the east and the Sudetes in the west. ...

leads over to the

Sudetes The Sudetes ( ), also known as the Sudeten Mountains or Sudetic Mountains, is a geomorphological subprovince of the Bohemian Massif province in Central Europe, shared by the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany. They consist mainly of mountain rang ...

. To the south the mountain chain falls away towards the

Pannonian Plain The Pannonian Basin, with the term Carpathian Basin being sometimes preferred in Hungarian literature, is a large sedimentary basin situated in southeastern Central Europe. After the Treaty of Trianon following World War I, the geomorphologic ...

, a large plain situated between the

Alps The Alps () are some of the highest and most extensive mountain ranges in Europe, stretching approximately across eight Alpine countries (from west to east): Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia. ...

, the

Dinaric Alps The Dinaric Alps (), also Dinarides, are a mountain range in Southern Europe, Southern and Southcentral Europe, separating the continental Balkan Peninsula from the Adriatic Sea. They stretch from Italy in the northwest through Slovenia, Croatia ...

, and the main mass of the Eastern Carpathians. The boundary between the Western Carpathians and the

Eastern Alps The Eastern Alps are usually defined as the area east of a line from Lake Constance and the Alpine Rhine valley, up to the Splügen Pass at the Main chain of the Alps, Alpine divide, and down the Liro (Como), Liro River to Lake Como in the south. ...

is formed by the

Vienna Basin The Vienna Basin (, , , Hungarian: ''Bécsi-medence'') is a geologically young tectonic burial basin and sedimentary basin in the seam area between the Alps, the Carpathians and the Pannonian Plain. Although it topographically separates the Al ...

, the Hainburg Hills of the

Little Carpathians The Little Carpathians (also: ''Lesser Carpathians'', ; ; ) are a low mountain range, about 100 km long, and part of the Carpathian Mountains. The mountains are situated in Western Slovakia, covering the area from Bratislava to Nové Mesto n ...

Devín Gate Devín Gate, Hainburger Gate or Hungarian Gates (, ; ) is a natural gate in the Danube valley at the border of Slovakia and Austria. It is one out of four geomorphological areas of the Devín Carpathians, part of the Little Carpathians mountain r ...

, and a gap carved by the

Danube The Danube ( ; see also #Names and etymology, other names) is the List of rivers of Europe#Longest rivers, second-longest river in Europe, after the Volga in Russia. It flows through Central and Southeastern Europe, from the Black Forest sou ...

. To the east and northeast the mountains are bounded by the East Slovak and

Sandomierz Basin Sandomierz Basin () is a lowland, located in southeastern Poland, between the Lesser Poland Upland, Lublin Upland and the Western Carpathians. Its name comes from the historical city of Sandomierz, and the basin has a triangular shape with the s ...

s, but it is less striking and passes through highland terrain that continues to the Eastern Carpathians.

Geology

The Western Carpathians are part of the northern branch of

alpine orogeny The Alpine orogeny, sometimes referred to as the Alpide orogeny, is an orogenic phase in the Late Mesozoic and the current Cenozoic which has formed the mountain ranges of the Alpide belt. Cause The Alpine orogeny was caused by the African c ...

, which was formed by the closure of the

Tethys Ocean The Tethys Ocean ( ; ), also called the Tethys Sea or the Neo-Tethys, was a prehistoric ocean during much of the Mesozoic Era and early-mid Cenozoic Era. It was the predecessor to the modern Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Eurasia ...

millions of years ago. The Western Carpathians are part of the

Alpide belt The Alpide belt or Alpine-Himalayan orogenic belt,K.M. Storetvedt, K. M., ''The Tethys Sea and the Alpine-Himalayan orogenic belt; mega-elements in a new global tectonic system,'' Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors, Volume 62, Issues 1 ...

. To the west they longitudinally join the

, but the exact boundary is hidden under the Neogene sedimentary fill of the

. To the east, their boundary with the

Eastern Carpathians Divisions of the Carpathians are a categorization of the Carpathian mountains system. Below is a detailed overview of the major subdivisions and ranges of the Carpathian Mountains. The Carpathians are a "subsystem" of a bigger Alps-Himalaya Sy ...

is the valley of the

Hornád The Hornád ( Slovak, ) or Hernád ( Hungarian, ) is a river in eastern Slovakia and north-eastern Hungary. It is a tributary to the river Slaná (Sajo). The source of the Hornád is the eastern slopes of Kráľova hoľa hill, south of Šuňa ...

Uzh River The Uzh (; translit. ''Uzh''; ; , ) is a river in Ukraine and Slovakia. Etymologists disagree about the origin of the name of the river. The Uzh is a tributary of the Laborets River, a river that flows in the Tysa Lowland in Zakarpattia Oblas ...

. The northern boundary with the East European craton and

is well marked by the thrust of

nappe In geology, a nappe or thrust sheet is a large sheetlike body of rock that has been moved more than or above a thrust fault from its original position. Nappes form in compressional tectonic settings like continental collision zones or on the ...

s of the Carpathian Flysch Belt. The southern boundary is less clear, because later postorogenetic evolution caused formation of

basins Basin may refer to: Geography and geology * Depression (geology) ** Back-arc basin, a submarine feature associated with island arcs and subduction zones ** Debris basin, designed to prevent damage from debris flow ** Drainage basin (hydrology), ...

, penetrating the mountain chain non-uniformly. The Western Carpathians have a complicated geological structure, that has been formed since the

Paleozoic The Paleozoic ( , , ; or Palaeozoic) Era is the first of three Era (geology), geological eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. Beginning 538.8 million years ago (Ma), it succeeds the Neoproterozoic (the last era of the Proterozoic Eon) and ends 251.9 Ma a ...

era. The oldest Paleozoic

rocks In geology, rock (or stone) is any naturally occurring solid mass or aggregate of minerals or mineraloid matter. It is categorized by the minerals included, its chemical composition, and the way in which it is formed. Rocks form the Earth's ...

experienced the first stage of deformation during the

Hercynian orogeny The Variscan orogeny, or Hercynian orogeny, was a geologic mountain-building event caused by Late Paleozoic continental collision between Euramerica (Laurussia) and Gondwana to form the supercontinent of Pangaea. Nomenclature The name ''Variscan ...

, but younger Alpine overprint is common.

Alpine orogeny The Alpine orogeny, sometimes referred to as the Alpide orogeny, is an orogenic phase in the Late Mesozoic and the current Cenozoic which has formed the mountain ranges of the Alpide belt. Cause The Alpine orogeny was caused by the African c ...

affected the area in several stages from

Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a Geological period, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately 143.1 Mya. ...

Neogene The Neogene ( ,) is a geologic period and system that spans 20.45 million years from the end of the Paleogene Period million years ago ( Mya) to the beginning of the present Quaternary Period million years ago. It is the second period of th ...

. During this period, parts of

were subducted under the

Adriatic Plate The Adriatic or Apulian plate is a small list of tectonic plates, tectonic plate carrying primarily continental crust that broke away from the African plate along a large transform fault in the Cretaceous period. The name Adriatic plate is usu ...

and Western Carpathian blocks were thrust over the margin of the Eurasian Plate. Tectonic units of the Western Carpathians are arranged in belt-like order, with the external units in the north and internal units in the south. Alpine evolution of the Western Carpathians is dominated by extension and closure of two or three oceanic domains:Plašienka, D., 2002
''Origin and growth of the Western Carpathian orogenetic wedge during the mesozoic.''
Geologica Carpathica Special Issues, 53, Proceedings of XVII. Congress of Carpathian-Balkan Geological Association Bratislava, September 1st - 4th 2002 Triassic-Jurassic Meliata-Halstatt Ocean, Jurassic-Cretaceous Piemont-Vahic Ocean/Zone and Cretaceous-Tertiary Valais-Magura Ocean. After a subduction of the Meliata Ocean, the

Inner Western Carpathians Divisions of the Carpathians are a categorization of the Carpathian mountains system. Below is a detailed overview of the major subdivisions and ranges of the Carpathian Mountains. The Carpathians are a "subsystem" of a bigger Alps-Himalaya S ...

were formed.

Suturing A surgical suture, also known as a stitch or stitches, is a medical device used to hold Tissue (biology), body tissues together and approximate wound edges after an injury or surgery. Application generally involves using a Sewing needle, needle w ...

of Vahic domain finalized thrusting in the , and consuming the crust of Carpathian Flysch Basins caused the formation of the Outer Western Carpathian

accretionary wedge An accretionary wedge or accretionary prism forms from sediments accreted onto the non- subducting tectonic plate at a convergent plate boundary. Most of the material in the accretionary wedge consists of marine sediments scraped off from the ...

( Carpathian Flysch Belt).

References

{{Authority control Mountain ranges of the Carpathians Mountain ranges of Austria Mountain ranges of the Czech Republic Mountain ranges of Hungary Mountain ranges of Poland Mountain ranges of Slovakia