Massif

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Look up Massif in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
 This article does not cite any references or sources. (December 2007)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

In geology, a massif is a section of a planet's crust that is demarcated by faults or flexures. In the movement of the crust, a massif tends to retain its internal structure while being displaced as a whole. The term is also used to refer to a group of mountains formed by such a structure. The massif is a smaller structural unit of the crust than a tectonic plate.

The word is taken from French (in which the word also means "massive"), where it is used to refer to a large mountain mass or compact group of connected mountains forming an independent portion of a range. One of the most notable European examples of a massif is the Massif Central of the Auvergne region of France.

[edit] List of massifs

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

In mountaineering and climbing literature, a massif is frequently used to denote the main mass of an individual mountain.

The Face on Mars is also called a massif, or alternatively, an albedo feature.[1]