Scientists Find that the Alps Erode at the Same Speed They Rise
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- Luzzone Lake, Ticino, Switzerland
- (© picture-alliance / Photoshot)
A group of German and Swiss geocientists working with the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres has made a paradoxical discovery - the Alps are growing in height just as fast as they are shrinking. The result correlates the mountain activity with climate.
The Alps came about by the collision of the African and European continents which began some 55 million years ago. The famed mountain range most likely gained its greatest height millions of years ago as a result of this tectonic activity.
In their measurements over the past decades, however, scientists have discovered that the Alpine summits grow up to a millimeter annually when compared with the low land. But researchers from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences determined that the mountains eroded simultaneously at almost the same speed as they grew.
The researchers determined the speed of the surface erosion by using a "locator" - the rare isotope Beryllium-10 which through cosmic radiation develops on the surface. When a surface erodes very quickly, however, there are fewer Beryllium-10 isotopes present, as in the case of the sand of the Swiss Alps' rivers.
Melting glaciers and growing rivers thus cause about the same amount of material to be eroded from the Alpine slopes as is regenerated from the deep Earth's crust. The climactic cycles and variations in Europe over the past 2.5 million years have hastened this erosion process.
Although the Alps are undergoing constant erosion in which glaciers and rock fall from the top, they are also being thrust upwards from the Earth's mantle. This has been long argued, but the phenomenon has now been proven for the first time for an entire mountain range.
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