Misplaced Pages

#205794

52-638: In the area of the foothills of the Sudetes it flows through the Chełmy Landscape Park . The Little Neisse flows for much of its course through deciduous forests. The entire course of the river is located south of Jawor , and north of Bolków and runs from west to east. Between Gniewków and Czernica , the Little Neisse discharges into the Raging Neisse , the largest and most important tributary of

104-561: A SW-NE oriented Bohemo-Silesian Belt of volcanic rocks. Mantle xenoliths have been recovered from the lavas of a volcano at Ještěd-Kozákov Ridge in the Czech western Sudetes. These pyroxenite xenoliths arrived to surface from approximate depths of 35, 70 and 73 km and indicate a complex history for the mantle beneath the Sudetes. There are thermal springs in the Sudetes with measured temperatures of 29 to 44 °C. Drilling has revealed

156-472: Is normally considered to be equivalent to Ptolemy's Gabreta forest). The modern Sudetes are probably Ptolemy's Askiburgion mountains. Ptolemy wrote "Σούδητα" in Greek , which is a neuter plural. Latin mons , however, is a masculine, hence Sudeti. The Latin version, and the modern geographical identification, is likely to be a scholastic innovation, as it is not attested in classical Latin literature. The meaning of

208-593: Is reflected in the ophiolites , MORB-basalts , blueschists and eclogites that occur in-between terranes. Various terranes of the Sudetes are likely extensions of the Armorican terrane while other terranes may be the fringes of the ancient Baltica continent. One possibility for the amalgamation of terranes in the Sudetes is that the Góry Sowie-Kłodzko terrane collided with the Orlica-Śnieżnik terrane causing

260-585: Is the part of the historical region of Silesia now in the Czech Republic . Czech Silesia is, together with Bohemia and Moravia , one of the three historical Czech lands . Silesia lies in the north-east of the Czech Republic, predominantly in the Moravian-Silesian Region , with a section in the northern Olomouc Region . It is almost identical in extent with Austrian Silesia (also known as

312-471: Is together name for the ranges of Giant Mountains , Hrubý Jeseník and Králický Sněžník Mountains . The highest mountains, those located along the Czech-Polish border have annual precipitations around 1500 mm. The Table Mountains that reach 919 m have precipitations ranging from 750 mm at lower locations to 920 mm in the upper parts with July being the rainiest month. Snow cover at

364-681: The Geographia by the Greco-Roman writer Ptolemy (Book 2, Chapter 10) c.  AD 150 for a range of mountains in Germania in the general region of the modern Czech Republic. There is no consensus about which mountains he meant, and he could for example have intended the Ore Mountains , joining the modern Sudetes to their west, or even (according to Schütte) the Bohemian Forest (although this

416-480: The Carpathians , were unlikely to attract much foreign tourism. Sandstone was quarried in Sudetes during the 19th and 20th centuries. Likewise volcanic rock has also been quarried to such degree untouched volcanoes are scarce. Sandstone labyrinths have been a notable tourist attraction since the 19th century with considerable investments being done in projecting trails some of which involve rock engineering. In

468-829: The First Czechoslovak Republic with large ethnic German populations. In 1918, the short-lived rump state of German-Austria proclaimed a Province of the Sudetenland in northern Moravia and Austrian Silesia around the city of Opava ( Troppau ). The term was used in a wider sense when on 1 October 1933 Konrad Henlein founded the Sudeten German Party and in Nazi German parlance Sudetendeutsche ( Sudeten Germans ) referred to all autochthonous ethnic Germans in Czechoslovakia . They were heavily clustered in

520-729: The Hrubý Jeseník mountains is the highest mountain of Moravia . Lusatia's highest point (1,072 m/3,517 ft) lies on Mount Smrk/Smrek in the Jizera Mountains , and the Sudetes' highest mountain in Germany, which is also the country's highest mountain east of the river Elbe , is Mount Lausche /Luž (793 m/2,600 ft) in the Zittau Mountains , the highest part of the Lusatian Mountains . The most notable rivers rising in

572-642: The Kaczawa . Sudetes The Sudetes ( / s uː ˈ d iː t iː z / soo- DEE -teez ), also known as the Sudeten Mountains or Sudetic Mountains , is a geomorphological subprovince of the Bohemian Massif province in Central Europe , shared by the Czech Republic , Poland and Germany . They consist mainly of mountain ranges and are the highest part of Bohemian Massif. They stretch from

SECTION 10

#1732852606206

624-670: The Kingdom of Bohemia . Modern-day Czech Silesia derives primarily from a small part of Silesia that remained within the Bohemian Crown and the Habsburg monarchy at the end of the First Silesian War in 1742, when the rest of Silesia was ceded to Prussia . It was re-organised as the Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia , with its capital at Opava ( German : Troppau , Polish : Opawa ). In 1900,

676-537: The Late Middle Ages and subsequent industrial pollution reduced the stands. Many arctic-alpine and alpine vascular plants have a disjunct distribution being notably absent from the central Sudetes despite suitable habitats. Possibly this is the result a warm period during the Holocene (last 10,000 years) which wiped out cold-adapted vascular plants in the medium-sized mountains of the central Sudetes where there

728-601: The Saxon capital of Dresden in the northwest across to the region of Lower Silesia in Poland and to the Moravian Gate in the Czech Republic in the east. Geographically the Sudetes are a Mittelgebirge with some characteristics typical of high mountains. Its plateaus and subtle summit relief makes the Sudetes more akin to mountains of Northern Europe than to the Alps . In the east of

780-617: The Sudetenland with most of the Czechoslovak border fortifications in the 1938 Munich Agreement , leaving the remainder of Czechoslovakia shorn of its natural borders and buffer zone, finally occupied by Germany in March 1939. After being annexed by Nazi Germany, much of the region was redesignated as the Reichsgau Sudetenland . After World War II , most of the previous population of

832-781: The Treaty of Versailles in 1920. Following the Munich Agreement of 1938, most of Czech Silesia became part of the Reichsgau Sudetenland and Poland occupied the Trans-Olza area on the west bank of the Olza (the Polish gains being lost when Nazi Germany occupied Poland the following year). In 1939–1940, during the anti-Polish Intelligenzaktion campaign, many Polish activists, priests, officials, teachers and school principals were deported by

884-405: The crust . Viewed in a map today these plutons make up about 15% the Sudetes. Granites are of S-type . The granites and grantic-gneisses of Izera in the west Sudetes are disassociated from orogeny and thought to have formed during rifting along a passive continental margin . The Karkonosze Granite, also in the west Sudetes, have been dated to have formed c . 318 million years ago at

936-463: The industrial age demand for firewood was sustained by metallurgic industries in the settlements and cities around the mountains. In the 19th century the Central Sudetes had an economic boom with sandstone quarrying and a flourishing tourism industry centered on the natural scenery. Despite this there was at least since the 1880s a trend of depopulation of villages and hamlets which continued into

988-416: The 14th century. In the 15th and 16th centuries agriculture had reached the inner part of Table Mountains in the Central Sudetes . Destruction and degradation of the Sudetes forest peaked in the 16th and 17th centuries with demand of firewood coming from glasshouses that operated through the area in the early modern period . Some limited form of forest management begun in the 18th century while in

1040-444: The 20th century. Since World War II various areas that were cleared of forest have been re-naturalized. Industrial activity across Europe has caused considerable damage to the forests as acid rain and heavy metals has arrived with westerly and southwesterly winds. Silver firs have proven particularly vulnerable to industrial soil contamination . After World War I , the name Sudetenland came into use to describe areas of

1092-502: The Duchy occupied an area of 5,140 km and had a population of 670,000. In 1918, the former Duchy formed part of the newly created state of Czechoslovakia , except for Cieszyn Silesia , which was split between Czechoslovakia and Poland in 1920, Czechoslovakia gaining its western portion. Hlučín Region ( Czech : Hlučínsko , German : Hultschiner Ländchen ), formerly part of Prussian Silesia , also became part of Czechoslovakia under

SECTION 20

#1732852606206

1144-523: The Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia), before 1918; between 1938 and 1945, part of the area was also known as Sudeten Silesia (German: Sudetenschlesien ; Czech: Sudetské Slezsko ; Silesian: Sudecki Ślōnsk ; Lower Silesian: Sudetaschläsing ; Polish: Śląsk Sudecki ). Czech Silesia borders Moravia in the south, Poland (Polish Silesia) in the north (in the northwest the County of Kladsko , until 1742/48 an integral part of Bohemia ) and Slovakia in

1196-709: The Early Carboniferous the Saxothuringian terrane collided with the Góry Sowie-Kłodzko-Orlica-Śnieżnik terrane closing the Rheic Ocean . Once the main phase of deformation of the orogeny was over basins that had formed in-between metamorphic rock massifs were filled by sedimentary rock in the Devonian and Carboniferous periods. During and after sedimentation large granitic plutons intruded

1248-810: The German occupiers to concentration camps and then murdered there. The Germans operated multiple forced labour camps in the region, including several Polenlager camps for Poles, multiple subcamps of the Stalag VIII-B/344 prisoner-of-war camp for Allied POWs, and subcamps of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Bruntál and Světlá Hora for mostly Jewish women. The occupiers also established several POW camps, including Oflag VIII-E , Oflag VIII-G, Heilag VIII-G and Stalag VIII-D , for Polish, French , Belgian, British, Serbian, Dutch and other Allied POWs. With

1300-514: The Late Cenozoic uplift has uplifted the Sudetes as a whole some grabens precede this uplift. Weathering during the Cenozoic led to the formation of an etchplain in parts of Sudetes. While this etchplain has been eroded various landforms and weathering mantles have been suggested to attest its former existence. At present the mountain range shows a remarkable diversity of landforms . Some of

1352-544: The Late Mesozoic retreat of the seas from the area which left the Sudetes subject to denudation for at least 65 million years. This meant that during the Late Cretaceous and Early Cenozoic 8 to 4 km of rock was eroded from the top of what is now the Sudetes. Concurrently with the Cenozoic denudation the climate cooled due to the northward drift of Europe. The collision between Africa and Europe has resulted in

1404-544: The Sudetes are Elbe , Oder , Spree , Morava , Bóbr , Lusatian Neisse , Eastern Neisse , Jizera and Kwisa . The highest parts of the Sudetes are protected by national parks; Karkonosze and Stołowe (Table) in Poland and Krkonoše in the Czech Republic. In the west, the Sudetes border with the Elbe Sandstone Mountains . The westernmost point of the Sudetes lies in the Dresden Heath ( Dresdner Heide ),

1456-632: The Sudetes there are many spa towns with sanatoria . In many places the developed tourist base – hotels, guest houses, ski infrastructure. The nearest international airports are Dresden Airport in Dresden and Wrocław Airport in Wrocław . Towns in this area with more than 10,000 inhabitants include: Czech Silesia Czech Silesia ( Czech : České Slezsko ; Silesian : Czeski Ślōnsk ; Lower Silesian : Tschechisch-Schläsing ; German : Tschechisch-Schlesien ; Polish : Śląsk Czeski )

1508-566: The Sudetes was forcibly expelled on the basis of the Potsdam Agreement and the Beneš decrees , and the region was resettled by new Polish and Czechoslovak citizens. A considerable proportion of the Czechoslovak populace thereafter strongly objected to the use of the term Sudety . In the Czech Republic the designation Krkonošsko-jesenická subprovincie is used in academic context and usually only

1560-602: The Sudetes, the Moravian Gate and Ostrava Basin separates from the Carpathian Mountains . The Sudetes' highest mountain is Mount Sněžka /Śnieżka 1,603 m (5,259 ft), which is also the highest mountain of the Czech Republic , Bohemia , Silesia , and Lower Silesian Voivodeship , in the Giant Mountains , lying on the border between the Czech Republic and Poland. Mount Praděd (1,491 m/4,893 ft) in

1612-485: The Table Mountains typically last 70 to 95 days depending on altitude. Settlement, logging and clearance has left forest pockets in the foothills with dense and continuous forest being found in the upper parts of the mountains. Due to logging in the last centuries little remains of the broad-leaf trees like beech , sycamore , ash and littleleaf linden that were once common in the Sudetes. Instead Norway spruce

Nysa Mała - Misplaced Pages Continue

1664-635: The Tłumaczów-Sienna Fault and the Marginal Sudetic Fault. There are remnants of lava flows and volcanic plugs in the Sudetes. The volcanic rocks making up these outcrops are of mafic chemistry and include basanite and represent episodes of volcanism in the Oligocene and Miocene periods. Volcanism affected not only the Sudetes but also parts of the Sudetic foreland being part of

1716-593: The beginning of the Variscan orogeny. The Karkonosze Granite is intruded by somewhat younger lamprophyre dykes . A NW-SE to WNW-ESE oriented strike-slip fault —the Intra-Sudetic fault— runs through the length of the Sudetes. The Intra-Sudetic fault is parallel with the Upper Elbe fault and Middle Oder fault . Other main faults at the sudetes are also NW-SE oriented, dextral and of strike slip type. These include

1768-626: The closure of a small oceanic basin. This event led to obduction of the Central Sudetic ophiolite in the Devonian period. In the Early Carboniferous the joint Góry Sowie-Kłodzko-Orlica-Śnieżnik terrane collided with the Brunovistulian terrane. This last terrane was part of the Old Red Continent and could correspond either to Baltica or the eastern tip of the narrow Avalonia terrane. Also by

1820-667: The deformation and uplift of the Sudetes. As such the uplift is related to the contemporary rise of the Alps and Carpathians . The acceleration of uplift of the Sudetes occurred during the Middle Miocene because of the Bohemian Massif's growth. Uplift was accomplished by the creation or reactivation of numerous faults leading to a reshaping of the relief by renewed erosion . Various "hanging valleys" attest to this uplift. Block tectonics has uplifted or sunken crustal blocks. While

1872-416: The discrete Czech names for the individual mountain ranges (e.g. Giant Mountains) appear, as under Subdivisions above. Part of the economy of the Sudetes is dedicated to tourism. Coal mining towns like Wałbrzych have re-oriented their economies towards tourism since the decline of mining in the 1980s. As of 2000 scholar Krzysztof R. Mazurski judged that the Sudetes, much like Poland's Baltic coast and

1924-534: The entire mountainous periphery of Czechoslovakia—not only in the former Moravian Provinz Sudetenland but also along the northwestern Bohemian borderlands with German Lower Silesia , Saxony and Bavaria , in an area formerly called German Bohemia . In total, the German minority population of interwar Czechoslovakia numbered around 20% of the total national population. Sparking the Sudeten Crisis , Adolf Hitler got his future enemies Britain and France to concede

1976-560: The exception of the areas around Cieszyn , Ostrava , and Hlučín , Czech Silesia was predominantly settled by German-speaking populations up until 1945. Following the World War II , Czech Silesia and Hlučín Region were returned to Czechoslovakia and the ethnic Germans were expelled in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement . The border with Poland was once again set along the Olza (although not confirmed by treaty until 1958). The population mainly speaks Czech with altered vowels. Some of

2028-628: The existence of waters at 87 °C at depths of 2000 m. These modern waters are believed to be associated to the Late Cenozoic volcanism in Central Europe. The Sudetes forms the NE border of the Bohemian Massif . In detail the Sudetes is made up of a series of massifs that are rectangular and rhomboid in plan view. These mountains corresponds to horsts and domes separated by basins, including grabens . The mountains took their present form after

2080-549: The landforms present are escarpments , inselbergs , bornhardts , granitic domes , tors , flared slopes and weathering pits . Various escarpments have originated from faults and may reach heights of up to 500 m. To the northeast the Sudetes is separated from the Sudetic foreland by a sharp mountain front made up of an escarpment linked to the Sudetic Marginal Fault. Near Kaczawa this escarpment reaches 80 to 120 m in height. The relative influence of Pliocene - Quaternary tectonic movements and erosion in shaping

2132-695: The mountain landscape may vary along the northern front of the Sudetes. During the Quaternary glaciations the Giant Mountains was the most glaciated part of the Sudetes. Evidence of this are its glacial cirques and the glacial valleys that develop next to it. The precise timing of the glaciations in the Sudetes is poorly constrained. Parts of the Sudetes remained free from glacier ice developing permafrost soils and periglacial landforms such as rock glaciers , nivation hollows, patterned ground , blockfields , solifluction landforms, blockstreams , tors and cryoplanation terraces. The occurrence or not of these periglacial landforms depends on altitude,

Nysa Mała - Misplaced Pages Continue

2184-435: The mountains occurring on high plateaus or in valley bottoms. Fens occur at slopes. The higher mountains of the Sudetes lie above the timber line which is made up of Norway spruce. Spruces in wind-exposed areas display features such as flag tree disposition of branches, tilted stems and elongated stem cross sections. Forest-free areas above the timber line have increased historically by deforestation yet lowering of

2236-399: The name is not known. In one hypothetical derivation, it means Mountains of Wild Boars , relying on Indo-European *su-, "pig". A better etymology perhaps is from Latin sudis , plural sudes , "spines", which can be used of spiny fish or spiny terrain. The Sudetes are usually divided into: High Sudetes ( Polish : Wysokie Sudety , Czech : Vysoké Sudety , German : Hochsudeten )

2288-427: The northeasternmost accessible part of Variscan orogen as in the North European Plain the orogen is buried beneath sediments. Plate tectonic movements during the Variscan orogeny assembled together four major and two to three lesser tectonostratigraphic terranes . The assemblage of the terranes ought to have involved the closure of at least two ocean basins containing oceanic crust and marine sediments. This

2340-462: The southeast. With the city of Ostrava roughly in its geographic centre, the area comprises much of the modern region of Moravian-Silesia (save for its southern edges) and, in its far west, a small part of the Olomouc Region in the area of Jeseník District . After Ostrava, the most important cities are Opava and Český Těšín . Historically Český Těšín is the western part of the city of Cieszyn , which nowadays lies in Poland. About two thirds of

2392-602: The steepness and direction of slopes and the underlying rock type . Other than debris flows there is little contemporary mass wasting in the mountains. Avalanches are common in the Sudetes. The area around the Sudetes had by the 12th century been relatively densely settled with agriculture and settlements expanding further in the High Middle Ages from the 13th century onward. The majority of settlers were Germans from neighbouring Silesia, founding typical Waldhufendörfer . As this trend went on thinning of forest and deforestation had turned clearly unsustainable by

2444-437: The territory is situated in the Eastern Sudetes . The rest of the territory extends into the Ostrava Basin , Moravian Gate , Moravian-Silesian Foothills and into the western section of the Western Beskids . Its major rivers are the Oder , Opava and Olza (which forms part of the natural border with Poland). In the Middle Ages , Silesia formed part of Piast -ruled Poland, and in the 14th century it gradually passed to

2496-424: The timber line by human activity is minimal. Areas above the timber line appear discontinuously as "islands" in the Sudetes. In the Giant Mountains the timber line lies at c . 1230 m a.s.l. while to the southeast in the Hrubý Jeseník mountains it lie at c . 1310 m a.s.l. Part of the Hrubý Jeseník mountains have been above the timber line for no less than 5000 years. Mountains rise considerably above

2548-408: The timber line, at most 400 m, a characteristic that sets the Sudetes apart from other Mittelgebirge of Central Europe . Geological research has been hampered by the multinational geography of the Sudetes with and the limitation of studies to state boundaries. The igneous and metamorphic rocks of the Sudetes originated during the Variscan orogeny and its aftermath. The Sudetes are

2600-399: The westernmost part of the West Lusatian Hill Country and Uplands , in Dresden. The Sudeten Germans (the German-speaking inhabitants of Czechoslovakia ) as well as the Sudetenland (the border regions of Bohemia, Moravia, and Czech Silesia they inhabited) are named after the Sudetes. The name Sudetes is derived from Sudeti montes , a Latinization of the name Soudeta ore used in

2652-441: Was no higher ground that could serve as refugia . Besides altitude the distribution of some alpine plants is influenced by soil. This is the case of Aster alpinus that grows preferentially on calcareous ground. Other alpine plants such as Cardamine amara , Epilobium anagallidifolium , Luzula sudetica and Solidago virgaurea occur beyond their altitudinal zonation in very humid areas. Peatlands are common in

SECTION 50

#1732852606206

2704-455: Was planted in their place in the early 19th century, in some places amounting to monocultures . To provide more space for spruce plantations various peatlands were drained in the 19th and 20th century. Some spruce plantations have suffered severe damage as the seeds used came from lowland specimens that were not adapted to mountain conditions. Silver fir grow naturally in the Sudetes being more widespread in past times, before clearance since

#205794