Salzburg Slate Alps


The Salzburg Slate Alps are a mountain range of the Eastern Alps, in the Austrian state of Salzburg. Situated within the greywacke zone, they could be regarded either as part of the Northern Limestone Alps or of the Central Eastern Alps.

Geography

The range is located between the Kitzbühel Alps, the continuation of the greywacke zone beyond Lake Zell and Saalach river in the west, and the Dachstein massif in the east. In the north it is adjacent to the Berchtesgaden Alps, while in the south the Salzach and Enns valleys separates it from the High and Low Tauern ranges of the Alpine crest. The Salzburg Slate Alps stretch about in west–east direction, from the Salzburg Pinzgau region, north of the Salzach, into the Pongau region and along the Enns river up to the border with Styria.
This inner-Alpine Mittelgebirge group, designated by the Alpine Club Classification of the Eastern Alps based on its underlying rock, cannot be assigned from a geological perspective either to the Northern or the Central Alps, so it does not fit into the general tripartite division of the Eastern Alps and, as a result, is variously treated in the literature.

Subdivisions

From a topographic perspective there are two subgroups, separated by the Salzach river where it bends northwards near St Johann im Pongau: