The Rhenish Massif, Rhine Massif or Rhenish Uplands (, : 'Rhenish Slate Uplands') is a geologic

massif A massif () is a principal mountain mass, such as a compact portion of a mountain range, containing one or more summits (e.g. France's Massif Central). In mountaineering literature, ''massif'' is frequently used to denote the main mass of an ...

in western

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, eastern

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

Luxembourg Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a landlocked country in Western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France on the south. Its capital and most populous city, Luxembour ...

and northeastern

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. It is drained centrally, south to north by the river

Rhine The Rhine ( ) is one of the List of rivers of Europe, major rivers in Europe. The river begins in the Swiss canton of Graubünden in the southeastern Swiss Alps. It forms part of the Swiss-Liechtenstein border, then part of the Austria–Swit ...

and a few of its tributaries. West of the indent of the Cologne Bight it has the

Eifel The Eifel (; , ) is a low mountain range in western Germany, eastern Belgium and northern Luxembourg. It occupies parts of southwestern North Rhine-Westphalia, northwestern Rhineland-Palatinate and the southern area of the German-speaking Com ...

and the Belgian and French

Ardennes The Ardennes ( ; ; ; ; ), also known as the Ardennes Forest or Forest of Ardennes, is a region of extensive forests, rough terrain, rolling hills and ridges primarily in Belgium and Luxembourg, extending into Germany and France. Geological ...

; east is its greatest German component, the Süder Uplands. The

Hunsrück The Hunsrück () is a long, triangular, pronounced mountain range, upland in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is bounded by the valleys of the Moselle (river), Moselle-Saar (north-to-west), the Nahe (south), and the Rhine (east). It is continued ...

hills form its southwest. The

Westerwald The Westerwald (; literally 'Western forest') is a low mountain range on the right bank of the river Rhine in the States of Germany, German federal states of Rhineland-Palatinate, Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia. It is a part of the Rhenish Ma ...

is an eastern strip. The

Lahn The Lahn () is a , right (or eastern) tributary of the Rhine in Germany. Its course passes through the States of Germany, federal states of North Rhine-Westphalia (23.0 km), Hesse (165.6 km), and Rhineland-Palatinate (57.0 km). ...

Dill Dill (''Anethum graveolens'') is an annual herb in the celery family Apiaceae. It is native to North Africa, Iran, and the Arabian Peninsula; it is grown widely in Eurasia, where its leaves and seeds are used as a herb or spice for flavouring ...

area is a small central zone and the Taunus Mountains form the rest, the south-east. The massif hosts the

Middle Rhine Middle Rhine (, ; kilometres 529 to 660 of the Rhine) is the section of the Rhine between Bingen and Bonn in Germany. It flows through the Rhine Gorge (), a formation created by erosion, which happened at about the same rate as an uplift i ...

Valley ( Rhine Gorge), a

UNESCO World Heritage World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an international treaty A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between sovereign states and/or international organizations that is governed by int ...

site linked to the lowest parts of the

Moselle The Moselle ( , ; ; ) is a river that rises in the Vosges mountains and flows through north-eastern France and Luxembourg to western Germany. It is a bank (geography), left bank tributary of the Rhine, which it joins at Koblenz. A sm ...

(, ).

Geology

Geologically the Rhenish Massif consists of

metamorphic rock Metamorphic rocks arise from the transformation of existing rock to new types of rock in a process called metamorphism. The original rock ( protolith) is subjected to temperatures greater than and, often, elevated pressure of or more, caus ...

s, mostly

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

s (hence its German name), deformed and

metamorphosed Metamorphic rocks arise from the transformation of existing rock to new types of rock in a process called metamorphism. The original rock (protolith) is subjected to temperatures greater than and, often, elevated pressure of or more, causi ...

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 The Harz (), also called the Harz Mountains, is a highland area in northern Germany. It has the highest elevations for that region, and its rugged terrain extends across parts of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. The name ''Harz'' der ...

further east and Devonian rocks of

Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

(southwestern

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

). Most rocks in the Rhenish Massif were originally sediments, mostly deposited during the

Devonian The Devonian ( ) is a period (geology), geologic period and system (stratigraphy), system of the Paleozoic era (geology), era during the Phanerozoic eon (geology), eon, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the preceding Silurian per ...

and

Carboniferous The Carboniferous ( ) is a Geologic time scale, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), system of the Paleozoic era (geology), era that spans 60 million years, from the end of the Devonian Period Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the ...

in a

back-arc basin A back-arc basin is a type of geologic Structural basin, basin, found at some convergent boundary, convergent plate boundaries. Presently all back-arc basins are submarine features associated with island arcs and subduction zones, with many found ...

called the

Rhenohercynian basin The Rhenohercynian Zone or Rheno-Hercynian zone in structural geology describes a Fold and thrust belt, fold belt of west and central Europe, formed during the Hercynian orogeny (about ). The zone consists of fold (geology), folded and thrust faul ...

. In some places in the Ardennes, even older rocks of

Cambrian The Cambrian ( ) is the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 51.95 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran period 538.8 Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the Ordov ...

Silurian The Silurian ( ) is a geologic period and system spanning 23.5 million years from the end of the Ordovician Period, at million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Devonian Period, Mya. The Silurian is the third and shortest period of t ...

age crop out as massifs overlain by Devonian slates. These older rocks form smaller massifs of their own (

Stavelot Stavelot (; ; ) is a town and municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium. The municipality consists of the following districts: Francorchamps and Stavelot. It is best known as the home of Spa-Francorchamps Circuit a ...

Rocroi Rocroi () is a Communes of France, commune in the Ardennes (département), Ardennes Departments of France, department in northern France. The central area is a notable surviving example of a bastion fort. Population History Rocroi was forti ...

, Givonne and Serpont). In the eastern Rhenish Massif some very limited outcrops in the Sauerland show rocks of

Ordovician The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and System (geology), system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era (geology), Era, and the second of twelve periods of the Phanerozoic Eon (geology), Eon. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years f ...

and lower Siliurian age. Further Ordovician rock exposures are part of the southern

Taunus The Taunus () is a mountain range in Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, located north west of Frankfurt and north of Wiesbaden. The tallest peak in the range is '' Großer Feldberg'' at 878 m; other notable peaks are '' Kleiner Feldberg' ...

. The second rock type are

Tertiary Tertiary (from Latin, meaning 'third' or 'of the third degree/order..') may refer to: * Tertiary period, an obsolete geologic period spanning from 66 to 2.6 million years ago * Tertiary (chemistry), a term describing bonding patterns in organic ch ...

and

Quaternary The Quaternary ( ) is the current and most recent of the three periods of the Cenozoic Era in the geologic time scale of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), as well as the current and most recent of the twelve periods of the ...

igneous rock Igneous rock ( ), or magmatic rock, is one of the three main rock types, the others being sedimentary and metamorphic. Igneous rocks are formed through the cooling and solidification of magma or lava. The magma can be derived from partial ...

s, which most prominently occur in the

Vulkaneifel Vulkaneifel () is a district (''Kreis'') in the northwest of the state Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the least densely populated district in the state and the fourth most sparsely populated district in Germany. The administrative centre of ...

, the Westerwald and the

Vogelsberg The Vogelsberg () is a large volcanic mountain range in the German Central Uplands in the state of Hesse, separated from the Rhön Mountains by the Fulda (river), Fulda river valley. Emerging approximately 19 million years ago, the Vogelsber ...

. The volcanic rocks have been linked to a

mantle plume A mantle plume is a proposed mechanism of convection within the Earth's mantle, hypothesized to explain anomalous volcanism. Because the plume head partially melts on reaching shallow depths, a plume is often invoked as the cause of volcanic ho ...

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.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
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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:

References

Literature

* d´Hein: ''Nationaler Geopark Vulkanland Eifel. Ein Natur- und Kulturführer.'' Gaasterland Verlag Düsseldorf 2006, . * Fliegel, D.: ''Ein geologisches Profil durch das Rheinische Schiefergebirge''. Cöln, 1909
Online-Ausgabe dilibri Rheinland-Pfalz
* von Winterfeld, Claus; Bayer, Ulf; Oncken, Onno; Lünenschloß, Brita; Springer, Jörn (1994): ''Das westliche Rheinische Schiefergebirge.'' Geowissenschaften; 12; 320-324, . * Meyer, W.: ''Geologie der Eifel'', Schweizerbart'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Stuttgart, 1986. . * Schmidt, E. et al.: ''Deutschland. Harms Handbuch der Geographie''. Paul List Verlag KG, 26th edn., Munich, 1975. . * Thews, J.-D.: ''Erläuterungen zur Geologischen Übersichtskarte von Hessen 1:300.000'', Geol. Abhandlungen Hessen Bd. 96, Hess. L.-A. für Bodenforschung, Wiesbaden, 1996. . * Vogel, Andreas, Hubert Miller and Reinhard Greiling, ''The Rhenish Massif: Structure, Evolution, Mineral Deposits and Present Geodynamics.'' Wiesbaden: Springer, 1987. . * Walter, R. et al.: ''Geologie von Mitteleuropa''. 5th edition, Schweizerbarth’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Stuttgart, 1992. (German). {{Authority control Geology of Germany Geography of North Rhine-Westphalia Geography of Rhineland-Palatinate Geography of Hesse Rhineland Geology of Belgium Geology of Luxembourg Geology of France