Relief

The predominance of platform structures in Europe is revealed in the wide distribution of flat types of relief, especially characteristic of Eastern Europe. In the northwestern parts of the East European platform, the base plains of Fennoscandia are formed, which were formed as a result of a long (from the Paleozoic) denudation of the surface of the Baltic Shield; in the Pleistocene, their relief was complicated by the activity of integumentary glaciers. This type includes the plains of the southern and eastern parts of Scandinavia, Finland, the Kola Peninsula, and Karelia. Low (up to 100-150 m) plains prevail with dense but shallow tectonic dissection, frequent elevations, widespread moraine ridges, lakes, kams, hollows (often occupied by lakes). Separate elevations, ridges (Smoland, Suomenselka, Manselka, West Karelian, Wind Belt, Caves), low mountains and mid mountains (Lovozero Tundra, Khibiny) correspond to the zones of the largest tectonic uplifts or outcrops of very dense rocks. Within the European platform and in adjacent parts of the synecliseepipaleozoic platforms (in the south – Scythian and in the west – Western European), reservoir and accumulative plains are represented, the formation of which was determined by the long-term accumulation of sedimentary rocks of the platform cover, which are mainly horizontal or (mainly in S.-Z.) monoclinal bedding. With a general flatness of the surface and a small average height (about 170 m), a combination of elevations up to 300-400 m high (Central Russian, Valdai, Volga, Verkhnekamsk, Bugulminsko-Belebeyevskaya, Northern Uvaly) and lowlands (Oksko-Don plain, Black Sea, Pechora, The Caspian lowlands, the low Volga region, the Central European plain, etc.), reflecting the tectonic heterogeneity of the basement of the platform, different orientation and range of neotectonic movements. In the northern regions of stratum plains exposed to Pleistocene glaciers, glacial and water-glacial types of plains are widespread. In them, glacial relief forms are superimposed on the glacial surface of ancient river valleys, watersheds, cuest ridges, etc. The severity of glacial forms decreases as a whole when moving to the south, to the boundaries of maximum (Dnieper) glaciation. The glacial relief is especially well preserved in the areas of the last (Valdai) glaciation. They are characterized by fresh moraine ridges (Baltic, ridges of the Valdai Upland, etc.), hills of the main moraine, lake-glacial lowlands. The plains lying between the boundaries of the maximum and the last glaciation have a glacial relief, heavily processed by postglacial erosion and denudation: weakly hilly moraine plains and almost flat sandra lowlands predominate (Polesie, Oksko-Don plain, southern areas of the Middle European plain of the valleys) in northern Belarus, on the Smolensk-Moscow Upland. Most of the extraglacial regions are occupied by stratified plains with water-erosion relief, characterized by mature, wide, terraced, asymmetric river valleys, as well as beams, ravines, and relatively flat watersheds. A particularly dense erosive dismemberment is inherent in the Central Russian, Volga, Podolsk, Dnieper Uplands, usually covered with a thickness of loess and loess-like loams. In the Volga region, where loose surface deposits are not present in large spaces, the degree of disintegration decreases. In the Caspian lowland, which is an accumulative sea plain that has recently emerged from sea level, due to its geological youth, low absolute height and dry climate, flat surfaces with shallow (1–5 m deep) depressions and hollows in the northern part clay, and low (2-8 m) sand ridges and mounds in the south. Donets, Timansky and Chernysheva ridges located among the stratified plains, confined to the protrusions of the folded basement, are erosion-denudation elevations STI, and the Dnieper and Azov upland plains are the ground, partially buried under the sedimentary cover.

In the western part of the Scandinavian Peninsula, framing the basement plains of Fennoscandia, there are revived folded-block and block Scandinavian mountains, formed on the site of the penalized and raised in the Cenozoic structures of the Caledonides and (in the south and south-east) of the Baltic shield. Flat-topped massifs dominate – fjelds, dissected by deep trogiform glacial valleys and having steep western and more gentle eastern slopes; widespread forms of glacial exazation. The highest peaks have alpine relief. Similar features are inherent in the lower mountains of the northern part of Great Britain – the North Scottish Highlands, the South Scottish Uplands.

In the areas of distribution of the Hercynian folded structures, predominantly rejuvenated folded-block medium-high mountains are represented. This type of relief is best expressed in the mountains of the Urals, located in the Ural-Tien Shan fold region. They represent a system of parallel ridges elongated in the meridional direction, separated by longitudinal and transverse depressions occupied by river valleys. Prolonged and intense denudation led to the formation of a series of foam captures in the Urals, and only neotectonic movements rejuvenated the mountainous terrain. Low and medium-high ridges with flat or domed peaks and soft outlines predominate; in the Polar and Subpolar Urals there are mountain-glacial landforms and small modern glaciers.

In the West European Hercynian zone, folded-block and block-type low and medium-altitude mountains and elevations corresponding to the anteclises of the folded base (Central French Massif, Armorican Upland, Cambrian Mountains, Vosges and Black Forest, Rhine Slate Mountains, Czech Massif with Rudny Mountains, Moors, Sudetes hills, etc.), experienced intense tectonic fragmentation; they are often interspersed with plains in the place of grabens (Verkhnereynskaya and Ronskaya lowlands) and stratified-step cuestic plains, confined mainly to syneclises of the folded base (Paris, London, Thuringian basins, Swabian-Franconian plain).

The Alpine geosynclinal folded region is distinguished by a diverse relief, the mountainous relief of which is characterized by folded and block-folded Alpine mid-altitude and high linearly elongated or arcuate curved ridges with distinct watershed ridges, well-developed slopes and foothills. The highest of them are the Alps, the orographic continuation of which is in the northwest. serves Jura, in S.-V. – Carpathians, then moving to Stara Planina, to the south-east. – Dinar mountains and Pindus, mountains of the Peloponnese peninsula and about. Crete, in the south – the Apennine mountains; the Pyrenees, Andalusian, and also Crimean mountains belong to this type. Water erosion, karst, and other processes played a significant role in the formation of the relief of these mountains, and in the highest mountains, repeated Pleistocene and (in the Alps) modern glaciation. Karst forms are most typical of the limestone regions of the Alps, Jura, Dinar and Crimean mountains. The second characteristic type of mountains of the region are block mid-high and low ridges and highlands, confined to the middle massifs of the Paleozoic age and having a relatively flat top surface, dense tectonic dissection, steep slopes (Rhodope Mountains, Rila, the mountains of Macedonia and eastern Greece, the greater part of Calabria Apeni Corsica and Sardinia, Central Cordillera of the Iberian Peninsula, Cantabrian Mountains, etc.). Significant territories are occupied by stratum and accumulative plains and plateaus of intermountain and foothill troughs with dominance of water erosion and accumulation forms (Middle Danube, Lower Danube, Padanskaya, Andaluskaya, Portuguese plains, New and Old Castile plateaus) or karst relief (Karst, Dobrudzha plateau).

Iceland is a distinctive relief, where a series of basalt plateaus of different heights is presented with domes and cones of extinct and active volcanoes, often buried under glaciers; widespread forms of glacial relief.

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