The Alps

Abstract

The western Alps form part of a great arc of fold mountains (see Fig. 10.1) that, beginning with their southernmost part next to the Mediterranean coast, runs inland in a south-east-north-west direction before curving around to adopt a south-north trend in most of the French/Italian sector and then swinging gradually to a west-south-west-east-north-east strike in the Swiss Alps. In the western Alps, the mountains reach the highest elevations of the whole chain (Mont Blanc, 4810 m; Matterhorn, 4477 m; Monte Rosa, 4634 m). The Silvretta massif in the Rhaetian (Austrian) Alps, lying between the upper Rhine and the upper Inn, marks approximately the boundary between the eastern and the western Alps. Although there are many individual variations, the general cross profile of the Alps in terms of structure is always the same. On the outer western and northern side of the arc lies a zone of Calcareous Alps of variable breadth (e.g., the Maritime, Provençal, Vierwaldstätter and Glarner Alps). On the inner side of this arcuate calcareous zone, there is the broad belt of the central, crystalline Alps.