Geology

The Geology of the Geopark [Time Scale]

The Czech-Bavarian Geopark ows its remarkable variety of geological formations, rocks and landscape forms to its unique position on several important “seams“ of the European continent.

Zones of the Variscan Mountains, which formed about 400 to 320 million years ago by the collision of two prehistoric continents.

The oldest “seam“ formed more than 300 million years ago during the collision of two old continents. The so-called Erbendorf line runs north of the deep borehole KTB near the Bavarian Windischeschenbach. This line separates two fundamental geological units of the Bohemian Massif, the Saxothuringicum (ST) in the north and the Moldanubicum (MO) in the south. The Moldanubicum is an old continent, whose rock units were repeatedly “brought into play“ during Variscan orogeny. The rocks of the Saxothuringicum formed mostly from the sediments and underlying rock of an old ocean basin, which lay north of the “Moldanubic continent“ (Gondwana).