...Africa. The African plate has been drifting north over millions of years. And when it pushes against the European plate, huge folds of rock have been forced up and over one another into great mountain ranges.
Europe's southern mountains, the Pyrenees, Carpathians, and the Alps, all rose from this collision. Pieces of primeval ocean floor have been lifted thousands of meters up into the sky. The Alps are still rising, as Africa continues to push north.
The volcanoes of southern Europe are vivid reminders of the great tectonic forces, lurking beneath our feet. The Vesuvius in Southern Italy is a sleeping giant. Nearly 2000 years ago, a huge eruption buried Pompeii. Today the city of Naples lies sprawled across its lower slopes. Who knows when another nudge from Africa would set it off again? It isn't just Europe's southern mountains that owe their existence to the advancing African plate. So too, does the Mediterranean Sea.
This sea is one of the defining boundaries of the continent. With its spectacular coastline and clear blue waters, it's one of Europe's great natural treasures. Much of the Mediterranean's extraordinary history hinges on the narrow seaway at its western end. At the Rock of Gibraltar, only 14 kilometers now separate Europe from Africa. About 6 millions years ago, the northward push of Africa, combined with a drop in sea level, created a vast dam, cutting off the Mediterranean from the Atlantic.
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words and expressions
fold: (n.) To form bends in (a stratum of rock). 【地質(zhì)學(xué)】地層褶曲（在地層的巖石上）形成彎曲
Pyrenees: (n.) A mountain range of southwest Europe extending along the French-Spanish border from the Bay of Biscay to the Mediterranean Sea. It rises to 3,406.2 m (11,168 ft) at Pico de Aneto. 比利牛斯山脈
Carpathians: (n.) (=Carpathian Mountains)(中歐)喀爾巴阡山脈
tectonic: (n.) Relating to, causing, or resulting from structural deformation of the earth's crust. 【地質(zhì)學(xué)】地殼構(gòu)造的關(guān)
Vesuvius: (v.) An active volcano, 1,281 m (4,200 ft) high, of southern Italy on the eastern shore of the Bay of Naples. A violent eruption in a.d. 79 destroyed the nearby city of Pompeii. 維蘇威山
nudge: (n.) A gentle push. 輕推
hinge: (v.) To attach by or equip with or as if with hinges or a hinge.給…裝鉸鏈，用鉸鏈接合
Gibraltar: (n.) A British colony at the northwest end of the Rock of Gibraltar, a peninsula on the south-central coast of Spain in the Strait of Gibraltar, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean between Spain and northern Africa. 直布羅陀
