The Variscan orogeny
Gondwana slams into Euramerica, raising mountains across Europe and welding Pangaea together.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 40 million years
- Known to
- ± 15 million years
- Era
- Carboniferous, Paleozoic
Between about 380 and 300 million years ago a series of collisions builds a mountain chain running from Iberia through France and Germany into central Europe, with the Appalachian orogeny as its North American continuation. It is the final act in assembling Pangaea. The eroded roots are the granite uplands of Cornwall, Brittany and the Massif Central, and the basins beside them are where much of Europe's coal accumulated.