The Karkonosze Mountains are an old massif made mainly of Hercynian granites (called the Karkonosze Mountains and occurring in several varieties), forming the intrusive core of the Izera-Karkonosze Bloc surrounded by transformed Precambrian and Palaeozoic rocks (for example, amphibolites and hornfels). The granite block of the Karkonosze Mountains was exposed in the Permian (290-245 min years, but its uplift continues with speed 1-1,5 mm per year) and since then, external factors shaped the surface of the land. The sit of intense denudative movements (destructive, equating) from the Paleogene period is the equation area – Równia under Śnieżka, over which there are some tough inselbergs.

During the alpine orogeny, the Karkonosze along with the entire Sudetes were raised again and crushed by faults. Lava infiltrated the created fissures, freezing to the surface in the form of basalt veins (for example, in the western wall of the Little Snowy Cauldron).

At the end of the running from 1,8 min years to 10 thousand. years ago the Ice Age (Pleistocene) The Giant Mountains glaciated. At that time, a dozen local valley glaciers were created. Glacier circuses have been established on both sides of the Śnieżka Massif, from which the ice tongues flowed (on the Polish side in the Łomniczka valley and on the Czech side in the Upa valley – this tongue was the longest and it achieved 5 km). Processes of erosion and accumulation of glaciers and water–during the glacial period, many landforms were created (boilers, U-shaped valleys, the mother, alluvial and dump cones and depressions, later filled with the waters of the lakes). In cold climate conditions, frost ventilation intensified, the effect of which is, inter alia, extensive debris (gravel pit, especially large ones on Śnieżka), solitary outlier rocks and rubble wreaths.

Today, the relief of the mountains is still changing, mainly under the influence of gravitational mass movements, surface and groundwater activities, surface rinsing and rinsing also caused by human activities.

The main ridge of the Karkonosze is the European division of waters separating the catchments of the North Sea (Elbe basin) and the Baltic Sea (Odra basin). Mountain lakes (joints) of postglacial origin are few: Mały and Wielki Staw and Śnieżne Stawki in Śnieżne Kotły.