Valais Ocean

When in the Cretaceous period Africa again began to move towards Europe, the Valais Ocean became sandwiched between the two continents.

To the east, the Valais oceanic crust, together with a piece of Iberian continental crust (called the Briançonnais terrane), subducted beneath the Apulian plate, a part of the African tectonic plate that had begun to move independently.

Fragments of Valais oceanic crust have been obducted and can be found as ophiolites in the Penninic nappes of the Alps.

In the Engadin window, remnants are found in the Pfundser zone and in the Tauern window the "Obere Schieferhülle"; at the northern margin of the Alps the remnants are called Rhenodanubic flysch.

[1] In the western Alps, remnants of the Valais crop out in many areas of Switzerland and France.