Triangle Zone

The Harz Mountains of North Germany expose Paleozoic sediments that were deformed during the Variscan Orogeny. Carboniferous siliclastic sediments were deposited in a foreland basin setting, quickly buried and compressively deformed. This structure is a triangle zone formed by two major thrusts, working against each other to form the triangle. Typically these structures are found at the front of a thrust belt, but this is in the centre. Perhaps it represent a snapshot of progressive deformation. More importantly, the core of the triangle zone is filled with isoclinal upright folds, not a smaller thrusts and duplexes, as conventional wisdom suggests. See Tanner et al. (2010) for details.