The Pyrenees rise
Iberia is pressed into France, closing the gap and throwing up a mountain wall between them.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 15 million years
- Known to
- ± 5 million years
- Era
- Eocene, Cenozoic
The Iberian microplate, which had rotated away from France opening the Bay of Biscay, reverses course and collides. The convergence stacks the crust into the Pyrenean chain through the Eocene. Because the range is comparatively young, small and well exposed, and because deep seismic profiles cross it cleanly, the Pyrenees became one of the best-imaged examples anywhere of how a collisional mountain belt is actually assembled at depth.