The province of Salzburg offers a whole palette of geological landscapes:
the relatively flat Alpine foothills, the precipitous limestone Alps and the glacier-covered main Alpine crest of the Hohe Tauern Range.
The wide basin of Salzburg was produced by the Salzachtal glacier.
To the north and the east lie the fan-like moraines of a glacier from the ice-age.
The basins between these hills are filled with clear blue lakes (Wallersee, Mattsee and Obertrumer See), wild moors and lush fields. To the east rise the mountains of the Salzkammergut,
where you find the Fuschl lake and the famous Wolfgangsee lake.
To the south the Salzach cuts its way through the limestone Alps, forming a valley between the Berchtesgaden mass and the Hagenberg range to the west and the Osterhorn and the Tennen range to the east.
The limestone Alps are made of mighty layers of carbonite, here you find large deposit of salt, for example on the Dürnberg mountain near Hallein (the mine was closed in 1989).
To the west lie the Hochkönig, the Steinernes Meer (stone sea), and the Loferer
and Leogang mountains, all part of the limestone Alps.
The slate Alps (Kitzböhel Alps), softer and greener than the steep limestone
walls of the Karst plateau are found between the limestone Alps and the Salzach valley.
South of the river Salzach we find Salzburg´s highest peak, the Grossglockner (3674), situated in the Hohe Tauern, a range of the Central Alps, formed by gneiss and slate.
In the Tauern valleys, carved out by glaciers in the ice-age, rivers fall down over steep cuesta scarps (Krimmler waterfalls) or have cut out deep gorges Lichtenstein gorge and Kitzloch gorge).
