Rhenohercynian Zone

The zone consists of folded and thrust Devonian and early Carboniferous sedimentary rocks that were deposited in a back-arc basin along the southern margin of the then existing paleocontinent Laurussia.

The Rhenohercynian Zone, named for the Rhine River and the Hercynian Forest of Antiquity, forms a narrow zone through western and central Europe, from Cornwall and Ireland in the west to the Harz mountains of central Germany in the east, including the Rhenish Massif (Ardennes, Taunus, Eifel and Hunsrück).

The southern margin of Laurussia was formed during the Caledonian orogeny of the Silurian period, about 420 million years ago.

From the Frasnian age (380 million years ago) the mafic volcanism ended, and the basin came locally under compressional stress, which led to folding and thrusting in the sedimentary rocks.

It was followed, from the Tournaisian (early Carboniferous, 355 million years ago) till the end of the Visean by a new period of extension.

[5] During the Sudetic (main) phase of the Hercynian orogeny (330-320 million years ago, Late-Visean and Namurian/Serpukhovian) compressional tectonics had the upper hand again.

In the Namurian age full-scale continental collision between Laurussia and Gondwana resulted in the destruction of the last oceanic crust of the basin.

During the later part of the Carboniferous period (Westphalian and Stephanian) the Rhenohercynian zone formed the foreland of a relatively fast-developing Hercynian mountainbelt to the south.

[7] When a foreland basin was formed in the Rhenohercynian zone, this was filled with upper Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) flysch and molasse sediments.

Most important structures and zones of the Hercynian orogeny in Europe. [ 1 ]
Syncline at a quarry at Profondeville , in the Belgian Ardennes . The rock strata are Upper Devonian sandstones and limestones , folded during the late phases of the Hercynian orogeny .