3.2. In Front of the Orogen: the West and Central European Platform

The West and Central European Platform forms the foreland of the Alpine and Pyrenean orogens and provides a natural laboratory for analyzing the response of an intraplate domain to Alpine collision-related and Atlantic ridge-push forces and to plume-induced thermal perturbation of the sub-lithospheric mantle (Cloetingh and Cornu, 2005b). During the Cenozoic, the lithosphere of the West and Central Platform has undergone a polyphase evolution, involving the development of the European Cenozoic Rift System (ECRIS), basin inversion, lithospheric folding controlling uplift of the Massif Central-Vosges-Black Forest-Bohemian Massif arch and the Armorican Massif, as well as subsidence of the North Sea Basin, and thermal doming of the Rhenish Massif and the Massif Central (Dèzes et al., 2004). These deformations had severe repercussions on the development of the topography and drainage systems of the Phanerozoic European Platform, particularly during the last 20 My (Fig. 37).

The intraplate domain of the West and Central European Platform is associated with a much higher level of neotectonic activity than hitherto realized (Fig. 38). Seismicity and stress indicator data, combined with geodetic and geomorphologic observations, demonstrate that this platform is presently deforming at strain rates of up to 1 mm/yr (Cloetingh et al., 2005b). This has major implications for the assessment of its natural hazards and environmental degradation. The TOPO-EUROPE network addresses the relationship between deeper lithospheric processes controlling neotectonics, and surface processes that affect the West and Central European Platform, with special emphasis on tectonically induced topography. The objective is to quantify the contribution of Alpine collisional and Atlantic ridge push stresses, as well as of the loads exerted by mantle-plumes, to the on-going intraplate deformation of the West and Central European Platform and its impact on topography and drainage system evolution and related natural hazards.