Collapse of a Hercynian Tibetan Plateau into a late Palaeozoic European Basin and Range province

The large width, the importance of crustal shortening and the likelihood of thick crust in the late Palaeozoic Hercynian (or Variscan) belt of southern Europe suggest a tectonic evolution analogous to the evolution of the Tibetan Plateau and its neighbouring Himalaya¹, and of the Altiplano and other high plateaux of the Andes. Here we extend Dewey and Burke's analogy¹ of the Hercynian chain with Tibet to include the subsequent stage of pervasive normal faulting and crustal extension and thinning, which characterize the active tectonics of Tibet, parts of the high Andes, and the Basin and Range province of western North America. It appears that normal faulting and rifting also characterize the late Palaeozoic tectonic activity of the Hercynian chain.