ALPS
The Alps are a mountain range that forms an arc across south-central Europe. Originally, this area was under a sea that lay
between Europe and Africa. When Africa began moving in a northerly direction more than 65 million years ago, the rocks were
highly folded and finally uplifted to form these mountains, which continue to rise at a rate of 0.5 millimeter per year. Glaciers,
streams, and slope processes have eroded them to their present striking appearance.
PRINCIPAL TERMS
ƒƒ conglomerate: sedimentary rock composed of
gravel in a sandy matrix
ƒƒ debris avalanche: a large mass of soil and rock
that falls and then slides on a cushion of air
downhill very rapidly as a unit
ƒƒ debris flow: a mass movement of high fluidity in
which more than half the solid material is greater
than sand size
ƒƒ glacier: a mass of ice showing motion and origi‑
nating from the compaction of snow
ƒƒ gneiss: metamorphic rock formed under high
pressure and temperature
ƒƒ granite: igneous rock originating from the
cooling of magma slowly under the ground
ƒƒ landslide: a relatively rapid movement of soil and
rock downslope
ƒƒ limestone: sedimentary rock made of calcium
carbonate
ƒƒ moraine: deposit of glacial till
ƒƒ nappe: a complex, large-scale rock fold on its side
where some beds are overturned
ƒƒ rockfall: a relatively free-falling movement of
rock material from a cliff or steep slope
ƒƒ sandstone: sedimentary rock composed primarily
of sand grains
ƒƒ schist: metamorphic rock with subparallel orien‑
tation of micaceous minerals that dominate its
composition
ƒƒ shale: sedimentary rock composed of silt and clay
particles
ƒƒ snow avalanche: a relatively rapid movement of
snow downslope
ƒƒ thrust fault: a break in a rock body at a low angle
of inclination where the hanging wall has moved
up in relation to the footwall
ƒƒ till: unsorted, unconsolidated material deposited
directly by glacier ice
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Location
The Alps are the famous mountains of south-cen‑
tral Europe. They make a huge arc extending from
southern France through Switzerland into Austria,
Germany, Yugoslavia, and Italy. This range is approxi‑
mately 800 kilometers long and covers more than
207,000 square kilometers. It lies about halfway be‑
tween the North Pole and the equator (from 44 to
48 degrees north latitude). The Alps are essentially
part of a large mountain chain that extends from
Europe through Greece to the higher ranges of Iran
and Central Asia. All these mountains were formed at
about the same time.
The Alps are subdivided into the western, central,
and eastern sections, and each section contains a
number of prominent subranges. The western Alps
lie primarily in France and rise from the shores of the
Riviera and the plains of Italy to form subranges of
the Maritime, Cottian, Dauphiné, Savoy, and Graian
Alps. The central Alps lie mainly in Switzerland with
the primary subranges being the Pennine, Bernese
Oberland, Lepontine, Glarus, and Rhaetian Alps.
The Pennine Alps are the highest and most spec‑
tacular of the subranges and lie along the FrenchSwiss-Italian borders. They extend 95 kilometers
from Mont Blanc (4,807 meters), the highest moun‑
tain in the Alps, to Monte Rosa (4,634 meters). Also
located in this range is the famous glacially carved
Matterhorn (4,478 meters), which lies on the border
between Switzerland and Italy. Just north of the
Pennine Alps, separated by the Rhone Valley, lies the
Bernese Oberland, the second-highest subrange of
the Alps. The Jungfrau (4,158 meters) is one of the
highest and most beautiful mountains in this range.
The eastern Alps have less lofty peaks but are still
noted for their spectacular scenery. The subranges
are found in several countries: the Bavarian Alps
in West Germany, the Dolomite and Carnic Alps in
northern Italy, the Julian Alps in Yugoslavia, and the
Hohe Tauern, Noric, and Stubai Alps in Austria.
Earth’s Surface and History
Formation
For many, it is hard to conceive of the idea that the
rocks that make up the Alps were once under the sea.
During the Mesozoic era (about 225-65 million years
ago), the continental shorelines were different. A
large sea, called the Tethys Sea, lay between the con‑
tinents of Africa, which formed the south shore, and
Europe, which formed the north shore. Spain, Italy,
Greece, and Turkey were actually small microplates
at the western end of this sea and were not attached
to Europe.
The French Alps. (PhotoDisc)
Alps
A large trough of sediment, or geosyncline, de‑
veloped during the Mesozoic era in the Tethys Sea
between the continents and extended all the way
to Indonesia. Sediments eroded from the uplands
of the continents collected in this geosyncline and
formed sedimentary rocks on top of the basement
rock of basalt and intrusions of granite. During the
Triassic period (about 225-190 million years ago),
some limestones were formed in the geosyncline,
but most of the rocks were formed in the Jurassic
(about 190-135 million years ago) and Cretaceous
(about 135-65 million years ago) periods.
Other limestones, marls, shales, and local‑
ized deposits of sandstones and conglom‑
erates were formed during this time. Some
metamorphic, green, lustrous schists,
called Bundner Schiefer, were also cre‑
ated during the Cretaceous period as mafic
magma intruded into the sediments.
The Cenozoic era (the last 65 million
years) marked the major episode of moun‑
tain building of the Alps. The African
plate began moving in a northerly direc‑
tion at the beginning of the Cenozoic. By
this time, the Italian microplate, called the
Carnic plate, had moved to the center of
the Tethys Sea. The intense compressional
forces of Africa pushed the Carnic plate
northward into the geosyncline sediments.
The European continent acted as an im‑
movable object. First, the compression pro‑
duced complicated folding and faulting of
the sedimentary rocks in the geosyncline.
The Alps are noted for the highly com‑
plicated anticlines (upfolds), synclines
(downfolds), recumbent folds (folds on
sides), and thrust faults (rock breaks at low
angles) created during this time. Most of
the intense compression occurred from
the Eocene through the Miocene epochs
(about 55-5 million years ago). Second,
these rocks of the geosyncline between the
Carnic microplate and the European con‑
tinent were uplifted by the compression to
form the Alps as the crust was reduced in
width by as much as 250-400 kilometers.
The rate of closing was approximately 5
centimeters per year. It is believed that this
uplifting process is continuing at a rate of
17
Alps
0.5 millimeter per year. The mountain building was
not a single episode but rather was episodic and inter‑
rupted by prolonged periods of relative calm. Most of
the uplift has occurred in the last 30 million years.
Nappes
A nappe is a large recumbent fold that may be
kilometers across and that is generally bounded by
a thrust fault. The largest and most studied nappes
in the world are in the Alps. The Alps were the first
mountain range in which nappe structures were
found to play a predominant role in development.
The nappe concept was developed in the late nine‑
teenth century in the Swiss Alps when geologists rec‑
ognized thick sequences of older rocks thrust faulted
over younger rocks, a sequence typical of nappes. To
explain these structures, Hans Konrad Escher von
der Linth and his student Albert Heim described the
Glarus overthrust in terms of a nappe, and the con‑
cept was born.
The crustal shortening and the uplift formed these
large overlapping nappe structures. For example, the
Pennine Alps are made of seven major nappes that
came from the central portion of the geosyncline.
They form the metamorphic core of the Alps and
were formed from very old sedimentary rocks with
the help of the intense temperatures and pressures
of regional metamorphism during the mountainbuilding process. The most common metamorphic
rocks are gneisses, mica schists, the green Bundner
Schiefer schists, phyllites, and slates. The Bernese
Oberland Alps are also called the High Calcareous
Alps because they are composed mainly of six nappes
that originated close to the European side of the
geosyncline and are made mainly of limestone. Also
in this range are the ultrahelvetic nappes made of
flysch, a sandstone formed during the mountainbuilding process from sediment formed from the
erosion of other nappes.
The Pre-Alps are just north of the Bernese
Oberland and also are mainly limestone. According
to some theories, they originated far to the east of
the nappes of the High Calcareous Alps in the geo‑
syncline but slid over them via gravity sliding during
the uplift. The nappes that make up the eastern
Alps and the western Alps came mainly from the
part of the geosyncline closest to Africa. The Jura
Mountains, which lie to the northwest of the Alps
on the Swiss-French border, also came from the same
18
Earth’s Surface and History
geosyncline, and they came from the portion closest
to the European continent.
The Alps were continually being eroded during
their uplift. Based on the sediment deposits at the
edges of the Alps, it has been estimated that the mass
of the Alps has been reduced during the last 30 mil‑
lion years into about one-fourth of its original
volume. Erosion of the Alps created fine-grained sed‑
iment that became flysch and a coarse-grained sedi‑
ment that became a rock called molasse. The Swiss
Plateau, just north of the Alps, is composed of abun‑
dant flysch and molasse formed from 60 to 10 million
years ago. Overall, the Alps are made primarily of
sedimentary rocks formed in the Tethys Sea between
225 and 30 million years ago. Limestone is the most
abundant of the sedimentary rocks. The central core
of the Alps is mainly metamorphic rock. Large intru‑
sions of granite are found near Mont Blanc and the
Aar and St. Gotthard massifs and are older than the
sedimentary rocks formed in the geosyncline. Other
small outcrops of older Paleozoic rocks (rocks older
than 225 million years) from the base of the geosyn‑
cline have been found in the Alps. Fossils of ammo‑
nites and brachiopods formed during the Mesozoic
and Cenozoic are common in the rocks.
Alpine Erosion: Glaciers
Since being uplifted, the Alps have been carved
to their present shapes and forms through the pro‑
cesses of erosion. Ice erosion during the ice age of
the last 2.5 million years has been the major agent
of change. Water erosion in the form of streams has
also provided extensive transformation. In this steep
terrain, gravity also has played a major role in erosion
through landslide and avalanche production.
The Great Ice Age began about 2.5 million years
ago as the climate of the world cooled. Glaciers grew
and filled the stream-carved valleys of the Alps, some
to a thickness of more than 2,000 meters. Only the
peaks of the mountains protruded from this large
ice field. These large moving masses of ice advanced
and retreated numerous times as the climate cooled
and warmed, each time eroding the mountains,
transporting the rock debris, and eventually depos‑
iting it as till. Glaciers carved out the landforms seen
everywhere in the Alps. Circular basins on the sides
of mountains called cirques, knife-edged ridges be‑
tween valleys named arêtes, and pointed mountain
peaks called horns were sculpted by the ice.
Earth’s Surface and History
Alps
A Timeline of Historic Avalanches
Jan. 17, 1718
Leukerbad, Switzerland: 55 dead after an avalanche strikes this town at 4,629 feet in the Swiss Alps.
July 12, 1892
St. Gervais, Switzerland: 140 dead when an avalanche strikes the towns of St. Gervais and La Fayet,
Switzerland, in an unusual summer occurrence when a massive chunk of La Tête Rousse glacier breaks
free and hundreds of tons of ice and debris slide down the 14,318-foot Mont Blanc.
Mar. 23, 1915
Britannia Mine, near Vancouver, British Columbia: 50 dead when hundreds of tons of snow break
loose above the Britannia Mine at Howe Sound and fall on mining bunkhouses.
Jan. 28, 1931
Bardonecchia, Italy: 21 dead from a regiment of men who have climbed Mount Galambra to the
northeast.
Feb. 11-13, 1952
Melkoede, Austria: 78 dead after a snowstorm that raged for ten days wreaks havoc in many coun‑
tries, with Austria bearing the brunt.
Dec. 23, 1952
Lagen, Austria: 23 dead when a blast of air preceding an avalanche blows a bus of tourists off a
bridge on the Flexenstrasse mountain road into the Aflenz River 18 feet below.
Jan. 11-14, 1954
Austria, Germany, Italy, Switzerland: 145 dead after a succession of avalanches during a fierce
winter blizzard buries families, farms, and entire villages throughout the area.
Jan. 10, 1962
Andes Mountains, Peru: Estimated 4,000 dead and $1.2 million in crop damage when melting ice
causes the edge of a huge glacier on the peak of Mount Huascarán to break away.
Feb. 18, 1965
Leduc Camp, near Stewart, British Columbia, Canada: 26 dead, 17 seriously injured, and a mining
camp mostly destroyed by snow and ice when part of the Leduc glacier slides into an 11-mile min‑
ing tunnel, trapping 40 people.
Feb. 10, 1970
Val d’Isère, France: 42 dead and 60 injured in what was called the worst avalanche in French
history, when more than 100,000 cubic yards of dry-powder snow slides down the Val d’Isère ski
resort and smashes through the picture windows of a hotel.
Mar. 19, 1971
Chungar, Peru: 600 dead when an earthquake in the Andes sets off a landslide that pours into a lake,
causing water to wash down a lower face, creating an avalanche of snow, mud, and rock.
Jan. 31, 1982
Salzburg, Austria: 13 dead when, after two days of unseasonably warm weather, an avalanche rum‑
bles down from a steep, craggy ridge to engulf 19 cross-country skiers.
Mar. 14, 1982
French Alps: 16 dead when an avalanche triggered by a sunny warm spell following two days of
heavy snowfall engulfs skiers.
Oct. 27, 1995
Flateyri, Iceland: 20 dead as a result of two avalanches—one that descends on a herd of horses in
Langidalur, and one that crashes down on the harbor in Sugandafjor, killing two men.
Mar. 16-18, 1996
Kashmir, India: 72 dead when tons of snow overcome frictional resistance on the deeply cut slopes
above the village of Kel, Azad “Free” Kashmir, India; the avalanche uproots a pine forest on its way
down.
Feb. 9, 1999
Chamonix, France: 12 dead when a dry-powder avalanche rumbles down Mount Pléceret in the
Chamonix Valley, ripping up forests and demolishing chalets in the villages of Le Tour and Mon‑
troc-le-Planet.
Feb. 14, 1999
Near Mount Baker, Washington: 2 dead when an avalanche sweeps down a chute just outside the
boundary of the Mount Baker Ski Area, carrying away many and burying 2.
Feb. 21, 1999
Evèlone, Switzerland: 10 dead after the heaviest snowstorms in the Alps in fifty years end in fatal
snowslides in Austria, France, Italy, and Switzerland.
Feb. 23-24, 1999
Galtür and Valzur, Austria: 38 dead, 10 houses destroyed, and 2,000 trapped after several winters
of heavy snowfalls in the Alpine countries of Europe.
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Alps
The names of many of the peaks listed on a map
of the Alps end in “horn” because they have been
carved by glaciers. Most of the V-shaped valleys that
had been formed by streams before the Great Ice
Age were broadened to a more U-shaped form by
the ice. The glacial debris that was carried by the ice
was eventually deposited when the ice melted as mo‑
raine, a deposition of glacial till. Ridges of moraine
on the edges of valleys and arcuate ridges at the ends
of valleys are lateral and terminal moraines produced
by the glaciers at their maximum extent. Lakes also
formed behind some of these terminal moraines in
the valleys. The city of Geneva in Switzerland is lo‑
cated on one of these terminal moraine dams formed
by the Rhone lacier. Massive deposits of glacial till lie
at the edges of the Alps where the glaciers ended.
More than 1,200 glaciers still exist in the Alps
today, most of them in the Pennine and Bernese
Oberland Alps. They continue to wear down the
sides of mountains and transport glacial debris. Most
are found at high elevations, but some, such as the
Grindelwald Glacier in Switzerland, can descend to
an elevation of 1,000 meters. The Aletsch glacier of
the Bernese Oberland is considered to be the largest
glacier of the Alps; it is 25 kilometers long and has a
surface area of 170 square kilometers. Many of the
streams in the Alps have a milky green color that is
produced by abundant silt from glacial abrasion and
shows the glacial origin of the water. Most of the gla‑
ciers are observed to be in recession, suggesting a
warming of the climate. This trend is attributed to
a steady temperature increase caused by human ac‑
tivity, particularly the emission of greenhouse gases
and the destruction of forests.
Alpine Erosion: Water
Water for great rivers and lakes is abundant in the
Alps and comes from snowmelt and rainfall. This
water feeds the many powerful streams that erode
the valleys, forming V-shapes. Some deep, streamcarved gorges have been formed in the past 10,000
years since the last glaciers melted, with some, such
as the Aar and Trient Gorges in Switzerland, being
more than 150 meters deep. Water has also carved
smaller landforms, such as the Swiss Pyramids, near
Sion, which are pedestals of glacial moraine with
boulders on the top. The four most important rivers
in Europe—the Rhone, the Rhine, the Po, and the
Danube—all contain abundant water from the
20
Earth’s Surface and History
melting of snow in the Alps. The St. Gotthard massif
at the end of the Pennine Alps has been called the
water tower of Europe because it is the headwaters of
so many of these great rivers. Abundant large lakes
are relics of the ice age and add to the scenic beauty
of the Alps. Many of the lakes are deep, as they fill
valleys deepened and dammed by glacial action.
Lake Geneva is the largest, with a surface area of 580
square kilometers and a depth of 310 meters.
Alpine Erosion: Gravity
Gravity also helps erode the Alps through landslides
and snow avalanches. Small landslides and rotational
slumps are common on these steep slopes, especially
after heavy rainfalls. The world’s second-largest dam
disaster occurred in 1963, when a landslide fell into
the lake in back of the Vaiont Dam in the Italian Alps.
A wall of water more than 100 meters high proceeded
down-valley and killed 2,600 people in the village of
Longarone and the surrounding towns.
Debris flows are formed in steep mountain stream
valleys when they flood and erode the valley bottom.
It is common to find large human-made levees, or
embankments, at the bottoms of these steep valleys
to contain the debris flows from hitting villages at the
valley bottoms. Debris avalanches are rare but devas‑
tating when they occur. In 1881, a total of 115 people
were killed when a debris avalanche moved at a ve‑
locity of more than 300 kilometers per hour through
the village of Elm. Rockfall is common at the edges of
these steep, U-shaped valleys, and no one ever knows
when a boulder may break away and head for the
valley bottom. Soil creep, where the soil is moving at
1 to 2 centimeters per year down the slope, is also a
problem on most slopes.
Snow avalanches kill between twenty and thirty
people annually in the Alps. The worst avalanches
happen when there is a large snowfall on steep slopes
that cannot hold the snow. The year of 1951 was called
the winter of terror because there were 265 deaths in
the Alps and abundant damage. It was a year of plen‑
tiful snowfall, with falls of 3 to 5 meters in a three-hour
period occurring on numerous occasions. In 1916
during World War I, more than ten thousand soldiers
were killed in the eastern Alps by snow avalanches.
Nearly fifty people were killed in avalanches in the
Alps between October 2005 and March 2006.
With the abundant water seeping into the ground
of the numerous areas with limestone bedrock, many
Earth’s Surface and History
caves have been formed in the Alps. The world’s
deepest cave, the Gouffre Jean Bernard, is found in
the French Alps and is 1,535 meters deep. The 140-ki‑
lometer-long cave at Holloch, Switzerland, is the
second-longest in the world. The Elizabeth Casteret
cave in the French Alps is one of the largest single
caverns in the world. The largest underground lake
in Europe, a flooded cave formed in gypsum between
layers of marble and schist, is located at St. Leonard
in the Bernese Oberland of Switzerland.
Study of the Alps
Compared to most other high mountain ranges of
the world, the Alps are highly populated and have been
for many years. Scientists have been studying the Alps
since the early nineteenth century, making them the
most studied mountain range in the world. Through
sheer determination and skill, several generations of
geologists have spent years putting together the story
of the origin of these mountains. Many books have
been written on the general geography, geology, struc‑
ture, glaciers, past glaciations, landforms, and snow av‑
alanches of the Alps. The Swiss have always been world
leaders in the production of maps. Guillaume-Henri
Dufour took thirty-two years to collect data and pro‑
duce the first topographic map of Switzerland in 1864,
and this twenty-five-page document was a masterpiece.
At a scale of 1:100,000, it was extremely accurate. By
1920, excellent topographic and geologic maps were
available for all parts of the Alps.
Because of the excellent exposures of rocks in the
valley walls, the Alps became a favorite field area for
geologists from around the world. The Alps provide
some of the most exciting places in the world for the
study of rocks (petrology) and the study of the folding
and breaking of rocks (structural geology). All parts
of the mountains have been intensively studied
as to the rock types and the folding and faulting.
Thousands of geologic maps and cross sections have
been produced. These local maps have then been in‑
terpreted in relation to the rest of the Alps and their
relationship to the original geosyncline deduced.
Classic works of the early twentieth century by Albert
Heim and Leon Collet are still treated with respect.
When most of the rocks had been studied, geologists
began to reinterpret sites, and this comprehensive re‑
evaluation analysis continues.
The early work of the structural geologists ex‑
plained how each part of the Alps came from a
Alps
particular part of the geosyncline, but it could not
provide a mechanism for the movements of these
vast zones of rocks. With the acceptance and develop‑
ment of the plate tectonics theory in the 1960’s and
1970’s, the geologists could then supply a process for
the development of the parts of the Alps. The 1970’s
and 1980’s were fruitful for alpine geologists, who
combined the very accurate mapping and cross sec‑
tions of the classical view of the geology of the Alps
with the modern ideas of plate tectonics.
Many railroad and automobile tunnels were cored
through the Alps during the twentieth century to help
travelers avoid high mountain passes. The Simplon,
Mont Blanc, Great St. Bernard, Lötschberg, and St.
Gotthard Tunnels have given geologists a very impor‑
tant chance to see inside the mountains to confirm their
ideas of the origins of different sections of the Alps.
The study of glaciers and the development of the
idea of an ice age both had their roots in the Alps.
After many hikes in the mountains and studies on gla‑
ciers, Swiss naturalist Louis Agassiz wrote Études sur
les glaciers in 1840. He introduced two radical ideas.
The first was that glaciers are actually moving and are
eroding as they proceed downvalley. The second was
that the Alps had been covered by a vast ice sheet in
the past similar to Greenland, and this ice had pro‑
duced much of the glacial till found in and around
the Alps. Agassiz’s work laid the foundation for the
whole study of glaciology.
Scott F. Burns
Further Reading
Ager, D. V., and M. Brooks, eds. Europe from Core to Crust.
London: John Wiley and Sons, 1977. The section on
alpine tectonics and their relationships to plate tec‑
tonics by Jean Aubouin is very good.
Anderson, J. G. C. The Structure of Western Europe. Ox‑
ford, England: Pergamon Press, 1978. The chapter
on alpine fold belts is superb and puts the geology of
the Alps in perspective of plate tectonics. Excellent
coverage of geological structures.
Bolius, David. Paleo Climate Reconstructions Based on Ice
Cores: Results from the Andes and the Alps. SVH-Verlag,
2010. Presents a study of climate change using sam‑
ples taken from ice cores in the Andes and Alps.
Includes sampling methodology, chemical analysis,
and documents the history of anthropogenic air pol‑
lution. Best suited for graduate students and profes‑
sional geologists and paleoclimatologists.
21
Alps
Ehlers, J., P. L. Gibbard, and P. D. Hughes, eds. Quaternary Glaciations; Extent and Chronology: A Closer Look.
New York: Elsevier, 2011. One volume in a series of
texts discussing the Quaternary period. This book
covers Pleistocene and quaternary glaciation events
around the world, and includes the Alps, Andes, Ap‑
palachians, Sierra Nevada, and Rocky Mountains,
among others. Contains an extensive index and a
CD containing instruction and maps for use with Ar‑
cView, ArcGIS, and GoogleEarth.
Gilligan, David Scott. In the Years of the Mountains:
Exploring the World’s High Ranges in Search of Their
Culture, Geology, and Ecology. New York: Thunder’s
Mouth Press, 2006. Discusses geology and ecology
of the Alps, Himalayas, Southern Alps of New Zea‑
land, and the Cordilleras. This book is written by
a natural history professor as an account of his
travel and discoveries scattered with scientific in‑
formation. Contains an extensive bibliography
and indexing.
Grotzinger, John, and Tom Jordan. Understanding
Earth. 6th ed. New York: W. H. Freeman, 2009.
This comprehensive physical geology text covers
the formation and development of the earth. In‑
cludes extensive sections on plate tectonics and
the development of the Alps. Readable by high
school students as well as general readers. Index
and glossary.
Maeder, Herbert. The Mountains of Switzerland.
London: Allen & Unwin, 1968. This excellent
book includes many black-and-white photographs
of the Alps. A fine section on geology, with addi‑
tional sections on plants, animals, and mountain
climbing.
Ollier, Cliff, and Colin Pain. The Origin of Mountains.
London: Cambridge University Press, 2000. This
text encompasses the geographic, geological,
and geophysical concepts of mountains. Topics
include fault-block mountains, fold belts and
folding, gravity structures, rift valleys and river
valleys, plateaus and mountain erosion. Begins
with a general overview of subduction and plate
tectonics. Mountain ranges discussed in detail
22
Earth’s Surface and History
include the Appalachians, Andes, Cascades, Hima‑
layas, Mt. St. Helens, and the Rockies.
Plummer, Charles C., Diane H. Carlson, and Lisa
Hammersley. Physical Geology. 13th ed. Boston:
McGraw-Hill, 2009. This is a straightforward,
easy-to-read introduction to geology intended for
those with little or no science background. There
is a section on plate tectonics and its relationship
to the development of the Alps. Includes good
illustrations.
Rutten, M. G. Geology of Western Europe. New York: El‑
sevier, 1969. The five chapters on alpine Europe
constitute one of the best summaries in English
of the geology of the Alps. The view is mainly
classical.
Schmidt, Stefan M., and Mark Handy. The Alps; Their
Evolution and Role Within the Mediterranean Collision
Zone. New York: Springer, 2011. Covers the unique
qualities of the Alps in comparison to other moun‑
tain chains like the Himalayas. Addresses the
geophysics involved in mountain building. Dis‑
cusses the Alps, structure over geological time.
A detailed text, suited for graduate students and
professionals.
Trumpy, Rudolph. Geology of Switzerland. Basel: Wepf,
1980. This guidebook was put out by the Swiss Geo‑
logical Commission and is one of the best English
summaries of the geology of the Swiss Alps, which
is the most complex portion of the Alps. The au‑
thor is the leading authority on the subject. The
classical view of the geology is considered in rela‑
tion to modern plate tectonics.
Windley, Brian F. The Evolving Continents. New York:
John Wiley and Sons, 1995. This general text
aimed at college students has a chapter that deals
with the development of the Alps. Bibliography
and index.
See also: Alpine Glaciers; Andes; Appalachians; Basin
and Range Province; Cascades; Folds; Geoclines; Gla‑
cial Deposits; Glacial Landforms; Himalaya; Ice Ages;
Mass Wasting; Mountain Belts; Rocky Mountains; Si‑
erra Nevada; Transverse Ranges.