Europe's disputed roof rises 5,642 metres between two seas
Mount Elbrus tops the Caucasus at 5,642 metres—832 metres above Mont Blanc—yet whether it counts as Europe's highest peak depends on where you draw the continent line. The range itself is a living suture where the Arabian plate keeps shoving north into Eurasia.
The Caucasus Mountains span the Asia–Europe junction between Black Sea and Caspian, wrapping a region that takes their name. The northern chain arcs from Black Sea shores toward Baku on a west-northwest/east-southeast line; the southern chain tracks roughly a hundred kilometres farther south, linked by the Likhi Range with Colchis Plain and Kur-Araz Lowland on either side. Geologically they belong to the Alpide belt. Greater Caucasus rocks are largely Cretaceous and Jurassic, with Paleozoic and Precambrian highs; Lesser Caucasus is mostly Paleogene with lesser Jurassic and Cretaceous slices.
Uplift traces plate collision: Arabia driving north against Eurasia after the Tethys closed, crumpling Jurassic-to-Miocene basin sediments into the Greater Caucasus and lifting Cenozoic volcanism in the Lesser. Strong earthquakes remain common. Elbrus and Kazbek are Pleistocene–Pliocene volcanoes; Kazbek is extinct, but Elbrus shows postglacial eruptions and summit fumaroles. The Greater Caucasus crest is often treated as the watershed boundary between Asia and Europe—placing Elbrus on the continental hinge rather than squarely inside Europe.
Climate swings hard with height and aspect. Sokhumi at sea level averages about 15 °C yearly; on Kazbek's slopes near 3,700 metres the average falls to roughly −6.1 °C. Northern Greater Caucasus slopes run about three degrees colder than southern ones. Precipitation generally rises westward: northeastern Caspian Depression lows can see only about 250 millimetres a year, while western Caucasus totals can reach 1,000 to 4,000 millimetres. Ultras and peaks above 4,500 metres crowd the high lists, with Turkey's Mount Ağrı just south of the Lesser Caucasus reminding travellers how crowded this collision zone remains.
Source: Caucasus Mountains
