On the Polish Trough

Abstract

The Polish trough represents the main part of a huge synsedimentary structure stretching from the Carpathians to the North Sea, mainly in a zone of weakness at the contact of the East-European Precambrian and Palaeozoic platforms. It was active from the Early Permian to the Early Cretaceous as a graben, and in the Late Cretaceous as a downwarp. A SW corner of the Baltic Shield acted as the threshold responsible for the division of the structure into Danish and Polish parts and limiting the zone of inversion. A connection with the Carpathian geosyncline is traced.