Anorogenic intra-plate magmatism was widespread in Europe from early Tertiary to Recent times, extending west to east from Spain to Bulgaria, and south to north from Sicily to northern Germany. Magmatism is spatially and temporally associated with Alpine-Pyrenean collisional tectonics, the development of an extensive lithospheric rift system in the northern foreland of the Alps, and, locally, with uplift of Variscan basement massifs (Massif Central, Rhenish Massif, Bohemian Massif). The volcanic regions vary in volume from large central volcanoes (e.g. Cantal, Massif Central;Vogelsberg, northern Germany), to small isolated plugs (e.g. Urach and Hegau provinces in southern Germany). Within the Mediterranean region, the Dinarides, the Pannonian Basin and Bulgaria, anorogenic volcanism locally postdates an earlier phase of subduction-related magmatism.The major and trace element and Sr-Nd-Pb isotope characteristics of the most primitive mafic magmatic rocks (MgO > 6 wt %) provide important constraints on the nature of the mantle source and the conditions of partial melting.. These are predominantly sodic (melilitites, nephelinites, basanites and alkali olivine basalts); however, locally, potassic magma types (olivine leucitites, leucite nephelinites) also occur. In several localities (e.g., Sicily; Vogelsberg and the Rhine Graben, Germany; Calatrava, central Spain) olivine-and quartz-tholeiites form a significant component of the magmatism. The sodic magmas were derived by variable degrees of partial melting (~ 0.5 -5 %) within a transitional zone between garnet-peridotite and spinel-peridotite mantle facies, close to the base of the lithosphere; the potassic magma types are interpreted as partial melts of enriched domains within the lithospheric mantle. Mantle partial melting was induced by adiabatic decompression of the asthenosphere, locally in small-scale, plume-like, diapirs which appear to upwell from ~ 400 km depth.
2Tertiary and Quaternary volcanic activity within Europe occurs in two principal geotectonic settings: referred to as orogenic and anorogenic by Wilson & Bianchini (1999). Occurrences of calc-alkaline volcanism (orogenic) in the Alpine chain, the Carpathians and the Mediterranean region (Harangi et al., this volume) can be explained geodynamically in terms of contemporaneous subduction, and will not be considered further in this review. Here emphasis is placed on the extensive anorogenic, dominantly alkaline, volcanic province to the north of the Alpine collision zone, including the Massif Central of France, the Rhenish Massif of northern Germany, the Rhine Graben, and the Eger Graben within the northern part of the Bohemian Massif in the Czech Republic (Figs. 1 & 2). Further to the east mafic alkaline volcanism (anorogenic) post-dates a major phase of subduction-related volcanism in the Pannonian Basin, the Dinarides (Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, N. Bosnia), Bulgaria and western Turkey. Further south,within the Mediterranean region, anorogenic volcanism occurs in Sicily, Sardinia, Monte V...