CARPATHIAN MOUNTAINS

 This is an overview of the geological subdivisions of the Romanian Carpathian Mountains. The Carpathians are a "subsystem" of the Alps-Himalaya System and are further divided into "provinces" and "subprovinces".
 The broadest divisions are shown in the map on the right. The last level of the division, i.e. the actual mountain ranges and basins, is usually called "units". The lowest-level detail for those units is maintained on separate pages.

 Traditional Romanian naming conventions differ from this list. In Romania, it is usual to divide the Eastern Carpathians in Romanian territory into three geographical groups (North, Centre, South), instead in Outer and Inner Eastern Carpathians.

The Transylvanian Plateau is encircled by, and geologically a part of, the Carpathians, but it is not a mountainous region and its inclusion is disputed in some sources. Its features are included below.
The Outer Carpathian Depressions lay outside the broad arc of the entire formation and are usually listed as part of the individual divisions of the Carpathian Mountains,of Western Carpathians, Eastern Carpathians etc.
The Carpathian Mountains or Carpathians are a range of mountains forming an arc roughly 1,500 km (932 mi) long across Central and Eastern Europe, making them the second-longest mountain range in Europe (after the Scandinavian Mountains, 1,700 km (1,056 mi)).
European populations of brown bears, wolves, chamois and lynxes, with the highest concentration in Romania, as well as over one third of all European plant species. The Carpathians and their foothills also have many thermal and mineral waters, with Romania having one-third of the European total.Romania is likewise home to the largest surface of virgin forests in Europe (excluding Russia), totaling 250,000 hectares (65%), most of them in the Carpathians, with the Southern Carpathians constituting Europe’s largest unfragmented forested area.
The name "Carpathian" may have been derived from Carpi, a Dacian tribe. According to Zosimus, this tribe lived until 381 on the eastern Carpathian slopes. The word could come from an Indo-European word meaning "rock". In Thracian means "rocky mountain". The Carpi tribe may be similar to or identical to another tribe which lived in the area called the Carpodaces, literally "the Carpi Dacians".
In late Roman documents, the Eastern Carpathian Mountains were referred to as Montes Sarmatici (meaning Sarmatian Mountains). The Western Carpathians were called Carpates, a name that is first recorded in Ptolemy's Geographia (2nd century AD).The area now occupied by the Carpathians was once occupied by smaller ocean basins. The Carpathian mountains were formed during the Alpine orogeny in the Mesozoic and Tertiary by moving the ALCAPA, Tisza and Dacia plates over subducting oceanic crust (see maps). The mountains take the form of a fold and thrust belt with generally north vergence in the western segment, northeast to east vergence in the eastern portion and southeast vergence in the southern portion.

The external, generally northern, portion of the orogenic belt is a Tertiary accretionary prism of a so-called Flysch belt created by rocks scraped off the sea bottom and thrust over the North-European plate. The Carpathian accretionary wedge is made of several thin skinned nappes composed of Cretaceous to Paleogene turbidites. Thrusting of the Flysch nappes over the Carpathian foreland caused the formation of the Carpathian foreland basin. Iron, gold and silver were found in great quantities in the Western Carpathians. After the Roman emperor Trajan's conquest of Dacia, he brought back to Rome over 165 tons of gold and 330 tons of silver

CEAHLAU MASSIF

The Ceahlău Massif  is one of the most notorious mountains of Romania. It is part of the Bistriţa Mountains range of the Eastern Carpathians division, in Neamţ County, in the Moldavia region.

The two most important peaks are Toaca (1904 m altitude) and Ocolaşul Mare (1907 m altitude). It is bounded to the east by the Bistriţa River and Lake Bicaz, to the south by the Bicaz River.



From the south, the main access point is the village of Izvorul Muntelui, located 12 km north from the town of Bicaz. To the north, Mount Ceahlău is also accessible from Durău.

There are many legends about the Ceahlău Massif and speculations regarding its possible reverence for the ancient Dacians; as a consequence it is often called "The Romanian Olympus."
Ceahlău National Park shelters a large variety of flora and fauna; some of the species are endemic or rarely seen elsewhere in Romania.Mount Ceahlău is a popular hiking destination in Romania.
There are seven main marked trails built for hikers and tourists. There are entering fees for visiting Ceahlău National Park and fines for non respecting park's regulations. The park is monitored by local rangers and there is also a mountain rescue service (Salvamont).

PARANG MOUNTAINS

Parâng Mountains  are one of the highest mountain ridges in Romania and Southern Carpathians, with its highest peak Parângu Mare reaching 2,519 m.

The Parâng mountains are located in the south-western part of the Central-Meridional Carpathians. They are the tallest mountains from the local Parang-Cindrel mountain group and the second largest mountains in the Romanian Carpathians after the Făgăraș Mountains.

They are situated between the Șureanu Mountains (north), Latoritei Mountains (north-east), Căpățânii Mountains (east), Vâlcan mountains (west) and the Petroşani Depression in the north-west. Located south and east of the city of Petroşani, the Parâng Mountains form the eastern barrier of the Jiu Valley (a plateau 100 kilometers long from east to west and 70-80 kilometers wide from north to south).

The general layout of the main ridge on a west-east axis and its altitudes of over 2000m makes the Parang mountains an orographic dam in the way of the air masses that flow on the north to north-west and south to south-west directions. Also, the asymmetry of the main ridge, with the steep side to the north, leads to the receiving of different amounts of heat and moisture, more on the southern side. The sun shines approximately 1800–2000 hours/year, the highest temperatures being recorded in July and August.The average annual temperature is 6 °C at the bottom of the mountain and 0 °C at altitudes around 1800m. Above 2000m, the average temperature is below 0 °C. The difference between the recorded average temperatures of the southern and northern slopes is around 1-2 °C.