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The landforms in Europe are shaped by younger crustal movements, especially
tertiary, of the ice age history and of the bedrock.
Mountain Ranges
Elevated mountain range areas, Caledonian, Hercynian and Tertiary, often form
highlands or mountainous areas, while flat or slightly undulating layers of
loose material, deposited by glaciers and rivers, form the lowlands. The
elevated tertiary mountain ranges form the largest and highest mountain
ranges: Sierra Nevada, Pyrenees, Apennines, Alps and Carpathians.
Elderly massifs, formed under older folds (Hercynic and Caledonian), are
raised as blocks: throughout Spain, the Central Massif in France,
further Normandy - Brittany, Rhinean shale mountains at the lower Rhine, Les
Vosges and the Black Forest, with the intermediate Rhine valley being formed by
subsidence, and Böhmerwald - Sudetene. In the British
Isles: Cornwall, Wales, Cumberland, the highlands around the center of Ireland,
and the Scottish Highlands, as well as the western part of the Scandinavian
peninsula. The landforms in these areas are characterized by the intricate,
strongly changing bedrock structure. Where small glaciers (bottom glaciers) have
worked and are found, the typical alpine forms are found in the mountains, as in
the Alps, Jotunheimen and Lofoten.
Lowlands
Of the lowlands, Posletta and the Hungarian lowlands represent low-lying
areas between the mountains, filled with loose material. On the Spanish block
there are almost flat layers, which give even shapes even though there is not
much lowland. The lowlands within Les Landes in France, around Garonne, the
Paris Basin and the London Basin consist of almost flat layers, just slightly
curved at the edges towards the raised masses. The Netherlands is almost
entirely formed by river fillings in the sea. The northern European lowlands of
Denmark, northern Germany, Poland, Belarus and western Russia consist of loose
material, formed during the ice ages, the Moors- and river material. Here is
low-lying land, but with many relatively marked valleys, made of meltwater
rivers during the ice age. The bedrock areas in Sweden and Finland are low, but
often with marked, hilly terrain and with a number of lakes. Lakes are most
often found in previously iced areas; the largest are Ladoga and Onega in
Russia.
Coastal Areas
The European Mediterranean coast and the Portuguese-Spanish Atlantic coast
are for the most part a rocky coast, where high land reaches the sea. Where the
lowlands go down to the sea, the high coast is interrupted by flat coasts, which
are deep in the Adriatic, where Po sets up its huge delta. Along the coast of
Italy, protruding parts of higher lands alternate with strong abrasion of
the sea, with parts where the loose material is deposited by the ocean currents
and by rivers from land. West of the Rhône estuary stretches a low coast with
shallow lakes within. The French coast towards the Bay of Biscay is low,
characterized by loose material, and with coastal dunes along the entire
beach. The Brittany-Normandy coast is in solid rock, this also applies to large
parts of Ireland, Cornwall and Wales. The coast
between Normandy and Belgium consists of stratified rocks. Here it is often a
steep, relatively straight coast, and long stretches of coast consist of chalk
layers.
The coast of the Netherlands, the northwestern part of Germany and Denmark
and the southern Baltic coast are mostly low. Frisian islands are old coastal
dune rows that the sea has broken through in relatively recent times. In Denmark
there are smaller lots with steep coasts, cliffs in moraine material, or in
limestone like Møns klint. The Finnish and Swedish Baltic Sea coast, the Swedish
west coast and the Norwegian south coast are formed by a relatively low, hilly
bedrock that dips into the sea. The small elevation portions then act as islands
and reefs. See population of all countries in Europe on
Countryaah.
Large parts of the Scottish coast and the entire Norwegian west coast are
relatively high and characterized by the fjords that cut into the country. These
fjords are made up of glacial streams that have flowed through the valleys from
inland during the Ice Age. Actual coastal islands are found only on certain
stretches, such as on the northeastern Adriatic coast, where the direction of
the rock in the mountain runs along the coast. In the northwestern France,
Scotland, Norway, Sweden and Finland, the islands often consist of hard, old
rock.
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