Geology
The age of Earth is 4600 million years. According to our knowledge Hungary's territory did not belong to the territories formed in ancient (archaicum) ages, however, from the middle ages (mezozoicum) every geological age made its marks on the surface or in the near.
- Present age
- Holocene (10-15000 years ago)
- Modern age
- Pleistocene (15000-2,5 million years ago)
- Modern age - Kainozoicum
- Pliocene (2,5- 9 million years ago)
- Miocene (9-25 million years ago)
- Oligocene (25-37 million years ago)
- Eocene (37-65 million years ago)
- Cretaceous (65-135 million years ago)
- Middle ages - Mezozoicum
- Jurassic period (135 -195 million years ago)
- Trias (195-240 million years ago)
- Perm (240-285 million years ago)
- Carbon (285 -375 million years ago)
- Ancient age - Paleozoicum
- Devon (375 -420 million years ago)
- Silur + Ordovicium (420-520 million years ago)
- Cambrium (520-580 million years ago)
In miocene (9-25 million years ago) some areas of the Northern Mountain-range were covered by sea. In the last section of the Tertiary Period, in pliocene (2,5-9 million years ago) one of most important parts of Hungary started to get dehumidified (around the mountains), however the bigger part of the country was covered by the hardly salty Pannon Sea, relatively shallow, 10-100 meters deep in which really thick sand and clay layers were deposited due to the slow, periodic sinking. At the end of pliocene the surface of the whole country kept rising gradually. The Pannonian Sea subsided, and the ancient rivers that were connected with each other in the beginning, laid down their debris and sediments in the subsiding basins (the Great Hungarian Plain, the Small Hungarian Plain). These sedimentary rocks are mined today and mainly, we use these minerals for building (plaster, concrete).
Due to the fact, that rivers rising in the mountains around laid their sediments consisting mainly of gravel and sand most importantly in the Carpathian basin, the geomorphological position of Hungary is very favourable in the aspects of gravel-accumulation (it belongs to the richest areas of Europe). The Carpathian basin has had an important sediment-collector characteristic all the way along the line from the beginning of its formation and for millions of years during this formation which has been continuously filled up from the eroding rock-material of rising mountains on the basin's edge. On one hand, the really important occurrences in our country are connected to the present-age, on the other hand to the ancient river beds. The main areas of gravel-mining are near the River Duna, Sajó and Rába with the centres of Csepel-Délegyháza, Nyékládháza and Hegyeshalom.