The Vosges Massif

Abstract

The Vosges Massif has been known since the last century as a part of the European Variscan (= Hercynian) chain. Like other European massifs, it is composed of two parts. The Northern Vosges consist of weakly metamorphosed and unmetamorphosed rocks, representing the whole Paleozoic sequence, deformed after Visean times. The Northern Vosges are related to the Saxo-Thuringian zone of Central Europe (Kossmat 1927). The second part, the Central and Southern Vosges, lies south of the Lalaye-Lubine zone (Fig.1) a roughly east-west major tectonic boundary. The domain consist of crystalline rocks, either highly metamorphosed or granitic (Central Vosges) and their Upper Devonian — Dinantian cover (Southern Vosges). This second part is referred to as the Moldanubian zone. The crystalline rocks of the Central Vosges, like those of other Moldanubian massifs in Czechoslovakia, Germany, and in the French Massif Central, have generally been regarded as an old Precambrian core. Isotopic dating of the mother rocks have demonstrated that they correspond to Lower Paleozoic sequences contemporaneous with (although with very different facies) the lower part of the Paleozoic sequence in the Saxo-Thuringian zone.