Geographical description 

    Geography

    Topography

The country is divided into two topographic regions:  

    1.Bohemia 

The western Bohemian region consists of rolling plains, hills and plateaus surrounded by low mountains. To the northwest there lies the paleozoic rock hills of the Ore Mountains. To the southwest there are wooded hills of the Bohemian forest. Towards the southeast there are the gentle uplands of the Moravian hills, which separate Bohemia from the plains of Moravia.

    2. Moravia

The eastern lowlands lie southeast of Bohemia. The lowland plains lie between Bohemia and the Carpathian mountain range of Slovakia. This has formed a natural corridor between the plains of Poland and the Danube valley and it is known as the “Moravian Gate”.  This is a traditional military corridor between the North European plain and the Danube in central Europe. In the Vsetín and Nový Jičín districts, there is different topography or geomorphology. This gives rise to a drastic difference in the amount of landslides that were activated by the floods of 1997. The geomorphological map (see map) shows that even over a short distance, the landscape and topography can change considerably, thus having a greater or lesser affect on the land when excess rain occurs.

    Generel Geology

The Czech Republic only covers a small amount of the Eurasian continent, but it is very rich in geological resources, and evidence suggests that the land mass has been developing for nearly 2.5 billion years. In the countries geological history, it was covered many times with shallow, and sometimes deep, seas. Other areas were affected by volcanic activity, large scale tectonic movements and periods of tropical and even glacial climates.

At the border with Slovakia the Alpino-Carpathian mountain range is located. During the formation of this mountain belt, rocks were forced deeper into the Earths crust. The high temperature and pressuse caused the rocks to undergo metamorphism. Some of these rocks were pushed upwards towards the surface and then uncovered by weathering and erosion. For these reasons, it is possible to find a variety of different rocks, which are formed at the bottom of seas and lakes, e.g. sandstones, limestones, conglomerates, slates and gravels. It is also common to find metamorphic rocks such as; phyllites and gneisses. As well as these, there are igneous rocks,  (granite and gabbro) and some volcanic rocks too, (basalts, phonolite and andesite). Due to the paleoenvironment(figures 10-13), many fossils exist in the sea and lake deposits. A large number of these fossils were found in an area to the south-west of Prague, known as the Barrandian, named after the paleontologist Joachim Barrande(1799-1877), who first discovered them. The most famous fossils which he found were trilobites.

The diverse geology is very good for the country because it provides many raw materials for the generation of energy, such as coal. There are also very good deposits for the construction industry, for example; basalt, granite sandstone, limestones, sands, clays and gravels. This also promoted the well known ceramic and glass industry.

In the Czech Republic, it is possible to find many different types of landscape. This is due to the diverse geology (see figure). Some of the more interesting and impressive examples include the 25 million year old volcanic landscape in north-west Bohemia. Also, in the north-west of this region there are rock-towers, canyons and table mountains. In the Moravian karst area, there are many caves with abundant stalactites and stalagmites.

    Tectonic History of the Carpathian Flysch Belt

The geological location of the Czech Republic lies between the Hercynian Platform, Alpine Carpathian System and the Fenno-Scandian Platform. Moravia is an important divide between the Bohemian Massif westward and the western Carpathian Mountain range eastward.

This distinctive divide was caused by a series of earth movements, which can be divided by the difference in time in which they took place. The oldest movement is called the Kimmerian orogeny, which occured in the late Jurassic and early Cretaceous (140 M.a.),  (see figure 1). The next noticeable movement was the introduction of the Magura beds (25M.a.) which was forced in a northwesterly direction by the African plate’s tectonic movements. Magura beds were thrust upwards and into the Krosno basin,(see figure 2) . Five million years later, the Magura beds started to form Nappe structures, (see figure 3) which was the beginning of the creation of the Carpathians. At 18 million years ago, the thrusting was still active and the sediments from the Krosno basin were pushed forwards and upward (see figure 4). One million years later, the activity still continued. More thrust faults were present with the continual pressure(see figure 5). The tectonic movements from the African continental plate moved in a northwest direction, thrusting over the southeastern European continent. This created a complex nappe systém of the Flysch belt of the West Carpathians,(see figure 7). 

The structure of the Magura nappes (outer Magura: flysch and inner Magura: granite) started to form during the Helvetian orogeny (from the Oligocene to the Miocene). This movement forced the sediment from the Tethys Ocean to rise up and be pushed to the front of the sequence with the Magura nappes being thrust over one another. Therefore, the flysch belt exists as the first deposit of the whole sequence. Fold structures of the Flysch belt occur as longitudinal and transverse faults, along which distinct strike-slip faults appeared. These are present due to the intense forces of the numerous orogenies that took place. Figure 8  shows on a larger scale, the present day geology of the area and the extent of the Carpathian Flysch belt.

Figures 9 to 12 are paleogeographical maps of how the area looked at the respective times.  Figure 9 at 45M.a., figure 10 at 22M.a.,figure 11 at 15M.a. and figure 12 at 10M.a. The yellow part of the maps are land and the blue is the ancient Tethys Ocean. They give some idea of how the environment looked at these times. It also shows where the formation of the flysch belts occurred i.e. sediments that formed in the Tethys Ocean.