Bohemian-Moravian Highlands
| Bohemian-Moravian Highlands | ||
|---|---|---|
| Highest peak | Javořice ( 837 m nm ) | |
| location | Czech Republic | |
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| Coordinates | 49 ° 13 ′ N , 15 ° 20 ′ E | |
| rock | Gneisses , granitoids | |
The Bohemian-Moravian Highlands , in Czech Českomoravská vrchovina or Vysočina , is an approximately 10,000 square kilometer plateau in the south of the Czech Republic , the western part of which is in Bohemia and the eastern part in Moravia . It is also known as the Moravian Ridge, the Bohemian-Moravian Ridge, the Bohemian-Moravian Plateau, the Bohemian-Moravian Plateau, the Bohemian-Moravian Ridge, the Bohemian-Moravian Mountain Ridge or the Bohemian-Moravian Upland . The Kraj Vysočina with the administrative seat Jihlava (Iglau) is named after the Czech name of the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands.
It is a long undulating hill country in the altitude range of about 500-800 meters, which is relatively densely populated in its lowlands. Its gentle heights are covered with individual farmsteads and occasionally with holiday apartments and holiday homes. The rounded summit areas offer panoramic views of the landscape, valleys and castles or a variety of opportunities for sporting activities.
Geography of the ridge
The Bohemian-Moravian Highlands extends from the Elbe lowlands in northern Bohemia to the Austrian border, from where it continues in the forest district of Lower Austria in the granite and gneiss plateau to the Weinsberg forest . In the west it extends to the level of the city of Tábor and in the east to the foreland depressions of the Western Carpathians .
The Bohemian-Moravian Highlands are largely a long-wave plateau, the relief of which is more reminiscent of a hilly country, although it reaches heights of up to 840 meters above sea level. Only a few rivers have cut deeper valleys and divide the plateau into several smaller mountain ranges. Of these, the Jihlava Mountains (tschech Jihlavské hills.) In the southwest with the Jaborschützberg ( Javořice 837 m nm ) while the highest part, but the Žďár hills to the north are important - including for tourism .
The river valleys are relatively densely populated, about half of the heights are forested. The remaining half of the high altitudes are used for growing maize and grain. As a result of the collective cultivation in the times of the ČSSR from 1945 to 1989, these fields still extend e.g. T. miles.
Many of the valley exits are dominated by castles , some of which were built near the town of Tábor during the Hussite Wars .
At the edges of the plateau there are tourist interesting and correspondingly frequented medieval towns such as Leitomischl in the north and Telsch in the south.
Geomorphological classification
- Bohemian-Moravian Highlands (Českomoravská vrchovina)
- Křemešnická vrchovina (" Kremeschniker Bergland")
- Hornosázavská pahorkatina ("hill country on the upper Sázava ")
- Železné hory (Iron Mountains)
- Hornosvratecká vrchovina ("Mountains on the Upper Svratka ")
- Křižanovská vrchovina ( Krischanauer Uplands)
- Javořická vrchovina (" Javořice Mountains ")
- Jevišovická pahorkatina (Jaispitzer hill country)
geology
The Bohemian-Moravian Highlands is part of the Bohemian Massif , the largest contiguous outcropping Variscides - hull in Central Europe. Within the Central European Variscides , the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands are assigned to the Moldanubian Zone (Moldanubic) due to their structure of highly metamorphic rocks ( gneisses ) and large granitoid rock bodies .
The rocks of the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands are transformed sedimentary rocks and igneous rocks of pre- Permian age. The transformation took place for the most part during the Variscan orogeny in the Carboniferous , which was caused by the collision of the large southern continent Gondwana with the large northern continent Laurussia (possibly with the participation of several small continents). The Variscan orogeny resulted in the formation of a huge mountain range, the so-called Hercynian system , which stretched across the newly formed supercontinent Pangea . The central European section of the Hercynian system is known as the Variscan Mountains .
The Moldanubic is part of the crystalline core of the Variscan Mountains. During the mountain formation, the Pre-Permian parent rocks were sunk deep into the earth's crust. There they were z. Sometimes exposed to extremely high pressures and temperatures. They were then transported back to higher areas of the crust by the tectonic forces, which in turn was accompanied by rock changes. At the end of the mountain formation, acidic magmas penetrated the metamorphic mountain range and crystallized into large granitoid rock bodies. One of these granitoid bodies is the South Bohemian batholith , which extends 160 kilometers in north-south direction from Jihlava to the Danube.
The Variscan Mountains, originally several thousand meters high, were largely eroded by the end of the Permian . While numerous Variscan mountain regions in Central Europe sank in the next millions of years and were even flooded by the sea, the Bohemian Massif and thus also today's Bohemian-Moravian Highlands remained a high area.
After the supercontinent Pangea had noticeably disintegrated since the Jurassic and its continental blocks had drifted apart, one of these blocks, Africa, moved from the south towards Europe since the end of the Cretaceous period and, among other things, caused the formation of the Alps in the Tertiary . The south of what was then the Bohemian Massif came deep beneath the northeastern Alps .
Since the Bohemian mass has remained a high area since the Variscan mountain range about 300 million years ago, there are in fact no younger rocks on the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands. Quaternary sediments are only found in river valleys .
