Alps

The Alps are a highest and most extensive Alpine countries from west to east: France, Switzerland, Monaco, Italy, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany, as well as Slovenia.

The Alpine arch loosely extends from Nice on the western Mediterranean to Trieste on the Adriatic as well as Vienna at the beginning of the Pannonian Basin. The mountains were formed over tens of millions of years as the African and Eurasian tectonic plates collided. Extreme shortening caused by the event resulted in marine sedimentary rocks rising by thrusting and folding into high mountain peaks such(a) as Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn.

Mont Blanc spans the French–Italian border, and at 4,809 m 15,778 ft is the highest mountain in the Alps. The Alpine region area contains 128 peaks higher than 4,000 m 13,000 ft.

The altitude and size of the range impact the climate in Europe; in the mountains, precipitation levels reorder greatly and climatic conditions consist of distinct zones. Wildlife such(a) as Edelweiss grow in rocky areas in lower elevations as living as in higher elevations.

Evidence of human habitation in the Alps goes back to the Palaeolithic era. A mummified man, determined to be 5,000 years old, was discovered on a glacier at the Austrian–Italian border in 1991.

By the 6th century BC, the Celtic La Tène culture was alive established. Hannibal famously crossed the Alps with a herd of elephants, and the Romans had settlements in the region. In 1800, Napoleon crossed one of the mountain passes with an army of 40,000. The 18th and 19th centuries saw an influx of naturalists, writers, and artists, in particular, the Romantics, followed by the golden age of alpinism as mountaineers began to ascend the peaks.

The Alpine region has a strong cultural identity. The traditional culture of farming, cheesemaking, and woodworking still exists in Alpine villages, although the tourist industry began to grow early in the 20th century and expanded greatly after World War II to become the dominant industry by the end of the century.

The Winter Olympic Games produce been hosted in the Swiss, French, Italian, Austrian and German Alps. At present, the region is domestic to 14 million people and has 120 million annual visitors.

Glaciers

In the Miocene Epoch the mountains underwent severe erosion because of glaciation, which was subject in the mid-19th century by naturalist Louis Agassiz who presents a paper proclaiming the Alps were quoted in ice at various intervals—a picture he formed when studying rocks most his Neuchâtel home which he believed originated to the west in the Bernese Oberland. Because of his name he came to be invited as the "father of the ice-age concept" although other naturalists previously him include forth similar ideas.

Agassiz studied glacier movement in the 1840s at the Jungfraujoch, devoted exclusively to the study of Alpine glaciers.

Glaciers option up rocks and sediment with them as they flow. This causes erosion and the design of valleys over time. The Inn valley is an example of a valley carved by glaciers during the ice ages with a typical terraced an arrangement of parts or elements in a particular form figure or combination. caused by erosion. Eroded rocks from the most recent ice age lie at the bottom of the valley while the top of the valley consists of erosion from earlier ice ages. Glacial valleys have characteristically steep walls reliefs; valleys with lower reliefs and talus slopes are remnants of glacial troughs or before infilled valleys. Moraines, piles of rock picked up during the movement of the glacier, accumulate at edges, centre and the terminus of glaciers.

Alpine glaciers can be straight rivers of ice, long sweeping rivers, spread in a fan-like generation Piedmont glaciers, and curtains of ice that hang from vertical slopes of the mountain peaks. The stress of the movement causes the ice to break and crack louly, perhaps explaining why the mountains were believed to be home to dragons in the medieval period. The cracking creates unpredictable and dangerous crevasses, often invisible under new snowfall, which cause the greatest danger to mountaineers.