Geology
The Prokletije are a subrange of the 1,000 km (621 mi) long Dinaric Alps. The Prokletije are a typical high mountain range with a pronounced steep topography and glacial features. Absolute relief energies of 1800 meters are found in the Valbona, Grbaja and Ropojani and Cijevna Valley. Overhanging walls and ridges forming pointed peaks are typical of the western and central Prokletije. The eastern mountains are less rugged prior to milder forms of relief. The valleys are characteristic of strong Pleistocene glaciation. Most of the area was formed by glacial influences with karstic areas in the western parts.
The range was formed by the folding actions of the African Plate, which lies under the European Plate. Nowhere in the Balkans have glaciers left so much evidence of erosion. After the Alps, these mountains are the most glaciated in Europe south of the Scandinavian ice sheet. They have very steep slopes made out of limestone and are the most karstic mountains in the Balkans. The Prokletije is a large, rugged, pathless and hardly passable range. It is one of the rare mountain ranges in Europe that has not been explored entirely.
In some areas, the Prokletije run almost parallel with the Šar Mountains in Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo. This tectonic crash produced the unusual zig-zag shape of Prokletije range, and also their curving from the dominant Dinaric northwestern - southeastern direction toward the northeastern one. In the western and central parts of the range the composition of the mountains is of mainly uniform with Mesozoic limestones and dolomites of the Jurassic and Cretaceous Ages. In the eastern Prokletije in addition to the limestone and dolomite series, there are rocks from the late Palaeozoic and Triassic periods, medium-Triassic volcanic rocks and Jurassic metamorphic rocks .
The Kalktafel of Prokletije is cut deeply with valleys in a variety of powerful rock blocks cut by the mountains north of Përroi i Thatë, the Biga e Gimajive south of it, the Jezerca block between Shala and Valbona valley, the massif of the Maja e Hekurave, the plateau of the Maja e Kolats north of Valbona and Shkëlzen northeast of Valbona. The valleys were formed by Ice Age glaciers, which created very steep walls and hollows up to 1000 meters deep. The south wall of the Maja Harapit is 800 meters high, making it the highest rock face on the Balkan Peninsula.
Although there some serious scientific research gives the Prokletije the status of a separate mountain chain, in most other ways this chain is still considered the highest of all Dinaric areas, connected with the Dinaric mountain chain in terms of geology, morphology, and ethnography.
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