The Alps have been intensely studied by geologists for more than a century, and they provide a unique natural laboratory to deepen our understanding of orogenesis processes and their relationship to present and past mantle dynamics. While most concepts that underlie current studies of mountain belts and convergence dynamics were born in the Alps, the belt has not been given the attention it deserves by geo-physical studies using the most recent techniques.

This assessment led a large number of European laboratories and institutes to join the AlpArray project that was launched in the summer of 2015. AlpArray will provide unified and homogeneous seismological land-sea coverage of the greater Alpine area at an unprecedented scale and station density within Europe. The preparation of the AlpArray project has strengthened the interest for geophysical investigations of the Alpine belt and new data have been recorded recently. Large-scale multidisciplinary research projects have also been organized in other belts (e.g. the Pyrenees), providing a wealth of new results on their structure and dynamics.

Within this context, we invite contributions that provide new results and that identify the remaining open questions on the present and past dynamics of the Alps and Alpine-type orogens. Both mono- and multi-disciplinary contributions are welcome from geophysical imaging, seismotectonics, geodesy, geodynamics, gravimetry, tectonics, structural geology, petrology and geochronology. Scales of interest range from crustal to upper mantle depths, on European mountain belts such as the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Dinarides, the Hellenides, the Taurides and the Carpathians.