alps

List of orogenic landforms

Forebulge arch; foreland basin; subducting nappe stack; suture zone; overriding plate nappe stack; major suture fault; overriding foreland basin

Foreland basin

Swiss Molasse Basin (N) and Po Basin (S)

Orogenic load flexes down lithosphere; long sedimentary basin filled with syn-orogenic sediment; subsidence rate increases over time as orogenic load grows

Forearc bulge

Jura Mountains

Lithosphere flexes up behind foreland basin; usually only a few hundred meters of uplift

Nappe stack

Helvetic nappes (European margin sediments), Penninic nappes (Tethys Ocean material), Austroalpine nappes (Apulian margin)

Large transported thrust sheets due to intense compression and faulting

Suture zone

Valaisan nappe

Remnants of oceanic crust that once separated the colliding continents; complex and subject to intense faulting and folding; can occur within the nappe stack

ophiolites (remnants of oceanic crust, pillow basalts, sheeted dykes, gabbro, peridotite), melanges (mixed rock types), and high-pressure metamorphic rocks

Major suture fault

Insubric line

Large scale fault or shear zone marking where the two plates collided

Often transpressional (combined thrust and strike-slip)