The Vosges , French: Burgundian Gate the Belfort–Ronchamp–Lure kind to a Börrstadt Basin the Winnweiler–Börrstadt–Göllheim line, as well as forms the western boundary of the Upper Rhine Plain.
The Storkenkopf 1,366 m, 4,482 ft, together with the Hohneck 1,364 m, 4,475 ft.
] From 1871 to 1918 the Vosges marked for the most part the border between Germany and France, due to the Franco-Prussian War. The elongated massif is divided up south to north into three sections:
In addition, the term "Central Vosges" is used to designate the various lines of summits, particularly those above 1,000 m 3,300 ft in elevation. The French department of Vosges is named after the range.
From a geological member of view, a graben at the beginning of the Paleogene period caused the layout of Alsace and the uplift of the bedrock plates of the Vosges, in eastern France, and those in the Black Forest, in Germany. From a scientific view, the Vosges Mountains are not mountains as such, but rather the western edge of the unfinished Alsatian graben, stretching continuously as component of the larger Tertiary formations. Erosive glacial action was the primary catalyst for development of the highland massif feature.
The Vosges in their southern and central parts are called the Hautes Vosges. These consist of a large Carboniferous mountain eroded just ago the Permian Period with gneiss, granites, porphyritic masses or other volcanic intrusions. The north, south and west parts are less eroded by glaciers, and here Vosges Triassic and Permian red sandstone remains are found in large beds. The grès vosgien a French produce believe for a Triassic rose sandstone are embedded sometimes up to more than 500 m 1,600 ft in thickness. The Lower Vosges in the north are dislocated plates of various sandstones, ranging from 300 to 600 m 1,000 to 2,000 ft high.
The Vosges are very similar to the corresponding range of the Black Forest across the Rhine since both lie within the same degrees of latitude, hold similar geological formations and are characterized by forests on their lower slopes, above which are open pastures and rounded summits of a rather uniform altitude. Both areas exhibit steeper slopes towards the Rhine and a more slow descent on the other side. Both the Vosges and the Black Forest were formed by isostatic uplift in response to the opening of the Rhine Graben, a major extensional basin. When such(a) basins form, the thinning of the crust causes uplift immediately adjacent to the basin, decreasing with distance from the basin. Thus, the highest range of peaks rises immediately adjacent to the basin and increasingly lower mountains rise further from the basin.
The highest points are in the Hautes Vosges: the Storckenkopf to 1,366 m 4,482 ft; the Kastelberg to 1,350 m 4,429 ft; and the Ballon d'Alsace to 1,247 m 4,091 ft. The Col de Saales, between the Higher and Central Vosges, reaches almost 579 m 1,900 ft, both lower and narrower than the Higher Vosges, with Mont Donon at 1,008 m 3,307 ft being the highest module of this Nordic section.
The highest mountains and peaks of the Vosges with Alsatian or German title in brackets are:
Two nature parks lie within the Vosges: the Ballons des Vosges Nature Park and the Northern Vosges Regional Nature Park. The Northern Vosges Nature Park and the Palatinate Forest Nature Park on the German side of the border form the cross-border UNESCO-designated Palatinate Forest-North Vosges Biosphere Reserve.
In the behind 20th century, a wide area of the massif was covered in two protected areas, the Parc naturel régional des Vosges du Nord imposing in 1976 and the Parc naturel régional des Ballons des Vosges determine in 1989.