Monte Cervino, or The Matterhorn One of Europe’s tallest peaks stands proudly at 4,478 met

Monte Cervino, or The Matterhorn One of Europe’s tallest peaks stands proudly at 4,478 metres on the Swiss-Italian border. Part of the Pennine Alps, it has four steep rocky faces smiling at the cardinal points, with a base surrounded by glaciers, that are fed by avalanches off the rocky slopes. It lies on the main Alpine watershed, separating rivers that flow into France and Germany such as the Rhone from rivers flowing south into Italy like the Po. Carved out during the last ice age, it has two common names (and a couple of other more obscure ones) depending which side of the mountain you grew up on. Matterhorn comes from the German words for meadow and peak, while Cervin is derived from the Latin word Silvius for forests. There are even two summits on the frontier between the countries, linked by an ridge, with the Swiss one being a whole metre higher. The Theodul Pass is the easiest way across, and has been a trading route since Gaulish and Roman times. It was first climbed (as far as we know) in 1865, with four climbers dying on the descent, illustrating from the start how dangerous mountains can be to the unwary or unlucky. It remains one of the Alps most lethal peaks, with over 500 mountaineers meeting their fate on its icy slopes. The East and North faces are subject to rockfalls and storms, in an area subject to very erratic weather at the best of times. Most climbers follow the ridges to the summit. The mountain is in one of the highest regions of the Alps, and the area is dotted with 4,000 + metre peaks. Geologically, it has a fascinating history, being composed of two layers. The top half is a highly metamorphosed erosional remnant (made of gneiss and called a klippe) of the Apulian micro-continental plate, a fragment that split off from Africa and collided with Europe. Having ended up in Gondwana after the split up of Pangaea during the Mesozoic, it was separated by the Tethys Ocean from the Laurussian rocks it was to later be thrust over, being put through intense temperatures and pressures in the process. The bottom half consists of metamorphosed old Tethyean sea bottom, mainly chunks of old Valais oceanic floor crust called ophiolites that have been thrust up onto the continent as subduction turned into collision and the ocean closed. There are also some marine sedimentary rocks in the stack. The bottom layer is less metamorphosed than the overlying summit rocks, an uncommon situation testifying to the huge forces that created the Alps. Both of these were thrust up at different times, as the Penninic (bottom sedimentary and greenschist rocks) and Austroalpine (summit gneiss) nappes. These are huge sheets of rock that fold like a rug under tectonic pressure to form mountains, being metamorphosed to varying degrees during the journey. These nappes were highly folded and broken apart, making Alpine geology highly localised and complex. The current landscape is the result of the ice ages, mostly during the last million years when an ice sheet waxed and waned over the Alps, followed by the ongoing accelerating deglaciation. Tourism has transformed the region since the late 18th century, making the fortune of ski towns such as Zermatt, which, being car free, can only be reached using one of the world’s great train journeys on the stunning glacier express linking it to St Moritz. Railways and cable cars make the mountain more accessible to non mountaineers. Loz Image credit: Popp Hackner, National Geographichttp://www.sciences360.com/index.php/the-importance-of-the-matterhorn-to-geology-204/http://www.summitpost.org/matterhorn-monte-cervino/150235http://www.zermatt.ch/en/page.cfm/zermatt_matterhorn/matterhornhttp://truffles04.tripod.com/ -- source link

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