Eastern Carpathian Foothills

Description

The region represents a portion of a large foredeep (Carpathian Foredeep) that formed during the Miocene epoch in front of the folding Carpathian Mountains. The outer zone of the foredeep has as its foundation the Podolian Platform; the inner zone consists of severely dislocated flysch deposits. The foredeep itself is filled with thick Miocene deposits of clays, argillites, calcareous clays, and sandstones covered by diluvial and alluvial deposits.

At the end of the Pliocene epoch the region was an accumulative-denudational peneplain covered by fluvial deposits of sand, silt, and clay originating from the Carpathians. As a result of an uplift at the end of the Pliocene and the beginning of the Pleistocene epoch the rivers intensified their erosion and sculpted into the surface a number of wide valleys, lowlands, and intervening ridges.

The uplift of Eastern Carpathian Foothills was not uniform, however, and the relief features are partly of tectonic origin. In the Dnieper glacial phase the northeastern part of Eastern Carpathian Foothills was occupied by a lobe of the European continental glacier, and the meltwaters temporarily ponded. By the end of the Pleistocene epoch the region was covered by deposits of loess. At present the rivers from the Carpathian Mountains, most notably the Stryi River, carry silt and sand on to Eastern Carpathian Foothills and deposit them in their floodplains.