Alpine orogeny
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The Alpine orogeny (sometimes also called Alpide orogeny) is an orogenic phase in the Tertiary that formed the mountain ranges of the Alpide belt. These mountains include (from west to east) the Atlas, the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Dinaric Alps, the Hellenides, the Balkan, the Taurus, the Caucasus, the Alborz, the Zagros, the Hindu Kush, the Pamir, the Karakoram, and the Himalayas. Sometimes other names occur to describe the formation of separate mountain ranges: for example Carpathean orogeny for the Carpathians, Hellenic orogeny for the Hellenides or the Himalayan orogeny for the Himalayas.
The Alpine orogeny occurred when the continents Africa and India and the small Cimmerian plate collided (from the south) with Eurasia in the north. Convergent movements between the tectonic plates (the Indian plate and the African plate from the south, the Eurasian plate from the north, and many smaller plates and microplates) began already in the early Cretaceous, but the major phases of mountain building began in the Paleocene to Eocene. Currently the process still continues in some of the Alpide mountain ranges.
The Alpine orogeny is considered one of the three major phases of orogeny in Europe that define the geology of that continent. The three are:
- the Caledonian orogeny that formed the Old Red Sandstone continent when the continents Baltica and Laurentia collided in the early Paleozoic.
- the Hercynian or Variscan orogeny that formed Pangaea when Gondwana and the Old Red Sandstone continent collided in the middle to late Paleozoic.
- the Alpine orogeny itself.
