page_title: South Swedish highlands
section_title: Geology
hierarchical_section_title: South Swedish highlands / Geology
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of the south swedish highland with cities and the country border to denmark. Svenska: Karta över sydsvenska höglandet med städer och riksgränsen Sverige-Danmark. Deutsch: Karte des südschwedischen Hochlandes mit Städten und der Grenze zu Dänemark
context_page_description: The South Swedish highlands or South Swedish Uplands is a hilly area covering large parts of Götaland in southern Sweden. Except for a lack of deep valleys, the landscape is similar to the Norrland terrain found further north in Sweden. The central-eastern parts of the highlands contain about thirty narrow canyons locally known as skurus.
  Much of the highlands lies above 200 m.a.s.l. and there are large areas around the highlands that exceed 100 m.a.s.l. The highlands are centered on Småland but cover also large swathes of Scania, Halland, Västergötland, Östergötland and Blekinge. The highest point lies 377 m.a.s.l.
context_section_description: Within a geological context the highlands are the expression of the South Swedish Dome. The South Swedish Dome has been subsided and been uplifted multiple times by epeirogenic movements during the Phanerozoic. The dome has had periods of subsidence and burial in sediments have alternated with periods of exhumation and the formation of peneplains and hilly relief. The Sub-Cambrian peneplain of Late Neoproterozoic age is the oldest of the surfaces. It covers the eastern and northern flanks of the dome and its crest region where it is up-broken. The mesozoic-aged Sub-Mesozoic hilly relief covers the southern and western fringes of the dome, corresponding roughly with the counties of Halland, Blekinge and northeastern Scania. The youngest well-defined surface is the South Småland peneplain that formed in the Neogene. In detail the South Swedish Dome has the form of a piedmonttreppen or staircase of erosion surfaces. From top to bottom the levels  are:
  the crestal and upbroken portions of the Sub-Cambrian peneplain
  the 300 m a.s.l. peneplain
  the 200 m a.s.l. peneplain, containing various inselbergs.
  the South Småland peneplain (175–125 m a.s.l.)
  the 100 m a.s.l. surface which is part of the South Småland peneplain
  The Late Cenozoic uplift of the dome is tentatively related to far-field compressional stresses that has uplifted the region as a giant anticline-like lithosphere fold. As such it is similar to uplifted passive margins like the Scandinavian Mountains or the mountains of Western and Eastern Greenland.
caption: Map centered on the South Swedish highlands.
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