Facts About Mont Blanc Mountain And Alps
The highest European mountain, Mont Blanc, is also the highest peak in the Alps.
It stands out in the Alps mountain range just above the place on the European continent where two plates collide the Earth’s crust.
The peaks covered with snow glittering in the sun, emerald green lakes and ice-glaciers – such as the travel guides describe the Alps, and so it every year experienced by millions of tourists.
In the port long, almost 1200 km stretch alpine ridges throughout Europe. At its widest point, between lakes Walen and Garde massif is 250 km wide. Begins steeply rising from the blue Mediterranean Sea, and just as suddenly ends along the Danube near Vienna. A large mountain range runs through seven countries; These are France, Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia.
How old are the Alps how they formed?
The Alps are a younger type of mountains, at least according to the geological calendar, and are not yet fully grown. The Earth’s crust beneath the massif every year raises a few millimeters, and the edges of the chain of invisible forces pushed into lower areas to the north and west. “Engine” of this constant movement of the crust are located in the interior of the Earth: an easy flow in the earth that the African plate, such as iceberg on the sea, pushed from the south towards the Eurasian plate, layers of rocks that are hundreds of millions of years deposited in-the Mediterranean Sea, pushed the and mixed and every day more rise above the sea level.
Without forces that inflict land and that in the creation of mountains „take care“ that they do not „grow to the sky“, the Alps would likely after 30 to 40 million years of raising were twice as many. They would have also completely different, much more subtle look. It’s, literally the last grinding, mountains had in the Ice Age when the cold, snow and glaciers filled the valley almost to the mountain ridge.
Where is Mont Blanc mountain?
Snow fields and glaciers to the present make up the image of the alpine landscape. “White Mountains” Mont Blanc or Monte Bianco has over twenty glaciers, including a famous Mer de Glace, entitled the “Arctic Ocean” whose “tongues” intersected with the cracks reach below the Chamonix valley.
Glaciers constantly need new and eternal snow, and about caring harsh mountain climate with low temperatures and high rainfall.
On the shady side of the peak high 4808 m during winter snow cover is more than 10 m. Climate snowy borders passing the Alps at an altitude between 2500 and 3000 m.
In the hottest periods after the Ice Age was not higher because for us certainly would not stay in the ice-preserved mummy of a man from the New Stone Age, famous Ötzi. Climbing Mont Blanc in Summer!
Animal and plant life on Mont Blanc
For plants and animals alpine altitude cold air was a constant challenge. To survive, they had to adapt to poor conditions for life and win the nature of with their weapons. Pillows plants that grow along the ground have created their own microclimate, and in addition, gathered dust rich in nutrients that are from somewhere brought winds. The rock ptarmigan bird moves safely with the help of sharp claws on the icy ground, their legs protected from the cold with thick feathers, and when sleeping this bird seeking for a protected spot behind rocks or in deep snow.
Other inhabitants of the Alps in winter go into the valleys, among them for thousands of years is the man. The highest constantly inhabited alpine villages are located at altitudes of about 2150 m; above them was and there are countless alpine village from which people go in the autumn before winter arrives with the snow and the cold. Before the development of mountaineering and tourism nobody in the winter there is not kept – and has a reason …
Who was the first man on Mont Blanc?
Interest in the mountains and hiking in the Alps emerged in the 18th century and then were mostly foreigners dared to climb the heights to which had never come man. On Mont Blanc, the first mountaineers appeared before the French Revolution. In August 1786, the village doctor, Michel-Gabriel Paccard and Jacques Balmat from Chamonix first came into the highest peak in Europe.
After a year, a naturalist from Geneva, Horace-Benedict de Saussure with caravan carrier has risen to the top, of course, for research purposes. He wanted to know how the air pressure decreases with increasing altitude. Saussure has determined the barometric height of Mont Blanc and saw that it is the highest mountain in Europe. This honorary title “white mountain” carry for about 200 years, although not undisputed, because if you counted the Caucasus to Europe, then to the mountains with peaks higher than 5,000 meters, between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, is in the first place.
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Who was the iceman of the Alps?
In September 1991, two mountaineers in a remote corner of the Ötztal Alps encountered creepy discovery; the remains of a man who was still partially covered with snow. At first, they thought it was a mummified corpse of a mountaineer who died decades ago and remained in the icy tomb, but objects that are found with him are excited scientists; ancient hunting equipment, and with it clothes and shoes which mountaineer never moving to the mountains. The finding was so sensational that some scientists still believe in deception.
For most of the Ötzi, as the dead man named after the place where it was found, the man of the so-called copper-stone age, the old is probably more than 5000 years. This is also corroborated by the fact that the Alps then were inhabited. In many places bathed the copper ore, and there was a lively trade with this metal.
- Read also Mummies And the Mummification Process
Facts about Ötzi
- Who found the iceman in 1991? Erika and Helmut Simon, from Nuremberg in Germany.
- Where was Ötzi the iceman’s body found? Near small place Ötztal in Alps.
- How old is Ötzi body? Probably about 5.000 to 5.300 years.
- How old was Ötzi the iceman when he died? Otzi was a 30-to-45-year old man.
- How tall was Ötzi the iceman? Approximately 160 cm (5’3″) (probably).
- He is Europe’s oldest known natural mummy.
- Where is mummy now? In the Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy.
- His blood cells are oldest blood cells ever identified
Facts about the Alps and Mont Blanc
- Highest peak in the Alps is Mont Blanc at 4810 metres (15,782 feet)
- Mont Blanc (French) means White Mountain
- Mont Blanc is the tallest mountain in the Alps
- Alps are 1,200 km (750 miles) long
- 14 million people live in the Alps region
- Up to 80,000 men died in the Alps during WWI
- There are 500 power plants
- Over 20,000 climbers reach the Mont Blanc each year
- Mont Blanc tunnel is 7 miles long
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