Massif Central

This article explains the mountain range, for the geological term see Geology of the Massif Central.

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The Massif Central (French Massif central, Occitan Massís central) is a mountain range in the centre of southern France, covering 85,000 km2 and occupying about 15 percent of the country. It takes its name from its central location in southern France. With an average altitude of 700 metres and a maximum altitude of 1885 metres in the Monts Dore, it is higher than the German low mountain ranges.

In the literature, the geographical definition of the Massif Central is not uniform, sometimes only the volcanic area is referred to as such. In geology, the definition extends to the Variscan basement. Geomorphologically, the border to the surrounding landscapes in the east and south is relatively clear, if one adds the mountain range of the Cevennes, since the terrain rises abruptly to these. The northernmost foothills are the Beaujolais up to shortly before Mâcon, the southernmost point is the Montagne Noire at the border to the Département Aude - both still peak at an altitude of over 1000 meters. In the north and west, the transition is more fluid, the relief steps down there in several stages. Limousin, Marche and Bourbonnais are the names of the landscapes where the massif borders on the limestone plains and alluvial plains grouped like a crescent around the mountain ranges, of which the Plateau de Millevaches, also at an altitude of almost 1000 metres, is the most westerly plateau. In this article, the area within these boundaries is referred to as the Massif Central.

The Massif Central is by no means a geographical unit, but can be divided into several highly differentiated regions due to differences in climate and soil conditions. These include Auvergne, the land of volcanoes, the high, rugged Cévennes, the barren but already Mediterranean limestone plateaus called Causses, and finally, so far south that it is often no longer included, the mountainous part of Languedoc-Roussillon. The history, culture and economy of the massif are as varied as the natural conditions.

Geographical location

The Massif Central is located to the west of the Rhone and is roughly bounded by the cities of Limoges, Clermont-Ferrand, Lyon, Nîmes, Béziers, Toulouse, Cahors, Périgueux and Angoulême; thus the Massif extends to the regions of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Occitanie. There, it includes all or part of the departments of

  • Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes: Ardèche, Loire, Rhône, Allier, Cantal, Haute-Loire and Puy-de-Dôme,
  • Nouvelle-Aquitaine: Corrèze, Creuse, Haute-Vienne and Dordogne (partly),
  • Occitania: Aveyron, Lot (partly), Tarn, Gard, Hérault and Lozère.

The largest cities located in the massif or on its edge are Saint-Étienne, Clermont-Ferrand and Limoges. Several stages of the Tour de France regularly take place here.

Geology of the Massif Central

See also: Geology of the Massif Central

The earliest geological traces can be dated to about 550 million years ago. In this period of the early Cambrian, the Massif Central seems to have been part of a large sill system separating two seas. Ablation debris is preserved here, partly interbedded with granitic intrusions. In the Ordovician, in the period from about 480 to 440 million years ago, a trench deepened and widened to form a broad ocean, in which mainly thick layers of clayey deep-sea sediments were deposited. 420 million years ago, at the threshold of the Silurian to the Devonian, Gondwana moved closer to central Europe again. Most of the seafloor was subducted and some of the sedimentary cover was also shifted. With that a huge fold mountain range, the Variscan Mountains, rose. It stretched across the entire (today's) eastern edge of North America, which at that time bordered Europe, across central to eastern Europe, and was probably much more immense than today's Alps. Sediments were transported to great depths and metamorphosed. Magma rose at the subduction zone.

As soon as the Variscan mountains rose, they already began to erode. Massive layers of debris were deposited in the foreland, which the meandering rivers turned into a swamp. This took place in the Carboniferous. Vast lush Carboniferous forests developed in this swamp. Coal layers were formed in these areas.

With the Alpine folding in the Tertiary, a second uplift of the terrain occurred: The collision of the African plate with the Eurasian plate caused seabed, on which limestone layers several hundred metres thick had formed, to be pushed upwards again along with the granite basement. These limestone plateaus form today's Causses, the geologically younger regions of the Massif Central. These were mainly formed in the Mesozoic period - especially in the Jurassic period - and rise in a staircase from northwest to southeast: While in Périgord and Quercy they reach only about 200 metres in height and are therefore not counted as part of the Massif Central proper, in the Lozère department they are over 1000 metres high. Several rivers, in particular the Tarn, have carved gorges of enormous depth between them.

Along a terrain collapse in the north, the Limagne, lava came to the surface again in the late Tertiary. These volcanoes, now extinct, form a mighty chain of steep basalt peaks west of Clermont-Ferrand, the so-called Chaîne des Puys. The most famous volcano is the Puy de Dôme, which gave the department its name.


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