The Pieniny Klippen Belt is in
geology
Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ear ...
a
tectonically
Tectonics (; ) are the processes that control the structure and properties of the Earth's crust and its evolution through time. These include the processes of mountain building, the growth and behavior of the strong, old cores of continents k ...
and
orographically
Orography is the study of the topographic relief of mountains, and can more broadly include hills, and any part of a region's elevated terrain. Orography (also known as ''oreography'', ''orology'' or ''oreology'') falls within the broader discip ...
remarkable zone in the
Western Carpathians
The Western Carpathians are a mountain range and geomorphological province that forms the western part of the Carpathian Mountains.
The mountain belt stretches from the Low Beskids range of the Eastern Carpathians along the border of Poland wi ...
, with a very complex geological structure. It is a narrow (only 0.4 to 19 km) and extremely long (about 600 km) north banded zone of extreme shortening and sub-vertical
strike-slip
In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust result from the action of plate tectonic ...
fault zone, with complex geological history, where only fragments of individual
strata
In geology and related fields, a stratum ( : strata) is a layer of rock or sediment characterized by certain lithologic properties or attributes that distinguish it from adjacent layers from which it is separated by visible surfaces known as ei ...
and
facies
In geology, a facies ( , ; same pronunciation and spelling in the plural) is a body of rock with specified characteristics, which can be any observable attribute of rocks (such as their overall appearance, composition, or condition of formatio ...
are preserved. The Pieniny Klippen Belt is considered one of the main tectonic
sutures of the
Carpathians
The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians () are a range of mountains forming an arc across Central Europe. Roughly long, it is the third-longest European mountain range after the Ural Mountains, Urals at and the Scandinavian Mountains at . The ...
and forms the boundary between the
Outer
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