formed the foreland of a relatively fast-developing Hercynian mountainbelt to the south. Isostatic subsidence of the foreland resulted in the development of a deep foreland basin. This filled with the products of erosion in the Hercynian mountains and the contemporaneously uplifted London-Brabant Massif to the north. During the Westphalian, the basin was completely filled and rose above sea level. Stratigraphy The Rhenohercynian basin was filled with Devonian and Carboniferous sediments. Sedimentation was often disrupted by tectonic phases, but nevertheless the total thickness of the sediments can in some places be more than several kilometers. When a foreland basin was formed in the Rhenohercynian zone, this was filled with upper Carboniferous (Pennsylvanian) flysch and molasse sediments. The Namurian is characterized by flysch, in the Westphalian this gradually grades into molasse and other continental deposits, among which the thick coal layers of the Belgian coal measures. References Literature Franke, W.; 1989: "Tectonostratigraphic units in the Variscan belt of Central Europe", in: Dallmeyer (eds.): Terranes in the Circum-Atlantic Paleozoic orogens, Geological Society of America Special Paper 230, pp. 67–90. Franke, W.; 1992: "Phanerozoic structures and events in central Europe", in: Blundell, D. J.; Freeman, R. & Mueller, S. (eds.): A Continent Revealed - The European Geotraverse, 297 pp., Cambridge University Press, , pp. 164–179. Franke, W.; 2000: "The mid-European segment of the Variscides: tectonostratigraphic units, terrane boundaries and plate tectonic evolution", in: Franke, W.; Haak, V.; Oncken, O. & Tanner, D. (eds.); Orogenic Processes, Quantification and Modelling in the Variscan Belt, Geological Society of London, Special Publications 179, pp. 35–61. Matte, P.; 2001: "The Variscan collage and orogeny (480±290 Ma) and the tectonic definition of the Armorica microplate: a review", Terra Nova 13, 122–128. von Raumer, J. F.; Stampfli, G. M. & Bussy, F.; 2003: "Gondwana-derived microcontinents – the constituents of the Variscan and Alpine collisional orogens", Tectonophysics 365, pp. 7–22. Walter, R.; 2003: Erdgeschichte – Die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane, 325 pp., Walter de Gruyter, Berlin (5th printing), . Ziegler, P. A.; 1990: Geological Atlas of Western and Central Europe, Shell Internationale Petroleum Maatschappij BV (2nd ed.), . Devonian geology Carboniferous geology Geology of Belgium Geology of Germany Geology of England Back-arc basins