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Big Game Hunting Maps
Distance: 269.4 Mi6288 Marlborough Dr
93117 Goleta -
Inyo Pro
Distance: 240.7 Mi219 W Main St
93526 Independence
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Description
This is a special introduction to the mountains and prominences of France, provided to peaklist.org by Mark Trengove. France is a large country by European standards. It has an area of 549,619 square kilometres (212,209 square miles) and has a population of around 61.1 million (2002). With the exception of the Massif Central in south central France and the Island of Corsica in the Mediterranean Sea, the mountainous regions of France can be found on or near the eastern and southern borders of the country. To the north and west of the Massif Central the land is mainly flat and low-lying, although the peninsula of Brittany jutting into the Atlantic Ocean presents a rugged granite coastline and an interior reaching an altitude in excess of 300m (1000 feet) in places. Two main geological events have given rise to the upland areas of the country. The first was the Hercynian Orogeny (= mountain-building), which occurred at the end of the Palaeozoic Era (c.300 to 248 million years ago). This created the Hercynian Massif, which stretched across much of the land that was to become Europe. The other event was the Alpine Orogeny, which occurred in the middle of the Tertiary Era (c.50 to 40 million years ago). This was responsible for the uplift of the Alps, Pyrenees, and mountains of Corsica. It also created the folding of the Jura and the faulting of the remains of the Hercynian Massifs (the Vosges and Massif Central), and a volcanic outbreak to the centre and east of the Massif Central. Between these periods of orogeny, erosion wore down the rocks, depositing material in the seas and lakes which had formed between the mountain ranges. Today there are the remains in France of four parts of the Hercynian Massif (Brittany, Vosges, Massif Central and the tract of high ground connecting the latter two). In between these blocks of hard granite, sandstone and shale are sedimentary basins linked by lowland corridors. To the south-east and south-west lie the much younger and higher folded mountain ranges of the Alps, Jura and Pyrenees.