The European Alps are the tectonic realm between the Eurasian and African plate, essentially dividing the Mediterranean Region and Central Europe. The Western European Alps show a manifold geology influenced by the ongoing convergence between the African and Eurasian plates. Mostly investigated by seismic and seismologic methods, electromagnetic measurements complement our knowledge of the shallow and deep structure of this mountain belt. We here present a large scale electromagnetic study that covers a cross-section from Germany to northern Italy and reveals the importance of the alpine mountain chain as an interrupter of presumably continuous conductors. Magnetotelluric and geomagnetic depth sounding data was acquired between 2008 and 2009. Hereby, the quality of magnetotelluric data in the period range of \(10-10^5\,\hbox {s}\) is essentially improved by Remote Reference and Robust Processing techniques. Thus, constraints from Magnetotellurics could be used to build a 3D forward model explaining geomagnetic depth sounding results in the study area. The main findings encompass interrupted, \(10-37\,{^\circ }\) S-SE dipping crustal conductors North of the Alps and E-SE dipping in the Briançonnais. The interruption is found to occur at depths around 9–13 km. The conductors top lies between 5 and 9 km leading to a conductance range of 1350–8060 S. Best results were achieved with a resistivity of 0.5–2 \(\,\Omega \,\hbox {m}\) . Furthermore, a lithosphere thickening from around 80–100 km North to 200 km beneath the central Western Alps was found with a conductance of \(2500\,\hbox {S}\) . The influence of huge sedimentary basins (Molasse basin and Po plain) on electromagnetic data is suggested to be minor compared with the influence of crustal conductors. Graphite networks arising from Palaeozoic sedimentary deposits are proposed to be accountable for the occurrence of high conductivity and the distribution pattern of crustal conductors. In conclusion the proposed model arisen from combined 3D modeling of noise corrected electromagnetic data is able to explain the geophysical influence of various structural features in and around the Western European Alps, adding essential values to the geophysical studies of the region.
