Eastern Alps
The Eastern Alps are usually defined as the area east of a line from Lake Constance and the Alpine Rhine valley, up to the Splügen Pass at the Alpine divide, and down the Liro River to Lake Como in the south. The peaks and mountain passes are lower than the Western Alps, while the range itself is broader and less arched.
Geography
Overview
The Eastern Alps include the eastern parts of Switzerland, all of Liechtenstein, and most of Austria from Vorarlberg to the east, as well as parts of extreme Southern Germany, northwestern Italy, northeastern Italy and a good portion of northern Slovenia. In the south the range is bound by the Italian Padan Plain; in the north the valley of the Danube River separates it from the Bohemian Massif. The easternmost spur is formed by the Vienna Woods range, with the Leopoldsberg overlooking the Danube and the Vienna basin, which is the transition zone to the arch of the Carpathian Mountains. The northern portion forms the limestone Berchtesgaden Alps.Mountains
The highest mountain in the Eastern Alps is Piz Bernina at in the Bernina Group of the Western Rhaetian Alps in Switzerland. The sole four-thousander of the range, its name is taken from the Bernina Pass and was given in 1850 by Johann Coaz, who also made the first ascent. The rocks composing Piz Bernina are diorites and gabbros, while the massif in general is composed of granites.File:Ortler Reschensee.JPG|right|thumb|left summit: the Königspitze, right summit: the Ortler; seen from Lake Reschen.
Excepting other peaks in the Bernina range, the next highest is the Ortler at in Italian South Tyrol and third the Großglockner, which stands on the border of Carinthia & East Tyrol in Austria, at, the highest mountain of Austria. The region around the Großglockner and the adjacent Pasterze Glacier has been a special protection area within the High Tauern National Park since 1986. Other high Tyrolian mountains include Königspitze, Monte Cevedale, and Wildspitze.
Crossing Tyrol, on the border between North and South Tyrol, runs the main chain of the Alps.
The city of Innsbruck is in the broad valley between high mountains of the so-called North Chain in the Karwendel Alps to the north and Patscherkofel and Serles to the south. The name "Innsbruck" means 'bridge over the Inn'.
Vorarlberg's notable mountain ranges include the Silvretta, the Rätikon, the Verwall and the Arlberg. The highest mountain is the Piz Buin, whose rocky peak of 3,312 m. The Silvretta Alps cut across Tirol and Vorarlberg, and Graubünden.
The Sulzfluh is well frequented by climbers and is situated in the Rätikon range of the Alps, on the border between Austria and Switzerland. On the eastern side is a mountain path, of grade T4, allowing non-climbers to reach the summit. There are six known caves in the limestone mountain, with lengths between 800 and 3000 or more yards, all with entrances on the Eastern side, in Switzerland.
About half of Liechtenstein's territory is mountainous. and the highest point of Liechtenstein is the Grauspitz with an altitude of 2599m above sea level. This is the highest summit of the Rätikon and is located on the border between Liechtenstein and Switzerland.
The Falknishorn, at above sea level, is the 5th highest mountain in Liechtenstein and represents the southernmost point of the country, it is also on the border between Liechtenstein and Switzerland. The area known as the Liechtenstein-Graubünden-Vorarlberg border triangle is around the Naafkopf mountain that reaches above sea level.
In addition to the peaks of the Alpine chain, which belong to the Limestone Alps, two inselbergs, Fläscherberg in the south and Eschnerberg in the north, rise from the Rhine Valley and belong to the Helvetic cover or flysch zone of the Alps. A sandstone mountain belt called the Flyschzone runs along the Northern Margin of the Limestone Alps and used to be part the submerged sea bed of the Tethys Ocean. The chain also includes the Klippenzone and Steinitzer Wald.
Liechtenstein lies entirely within the Rätikon and is thus allotted either to the Eastern Alps or to the Central Alps depending on how its geology is classified. The Rätikon mountain range, in the Central Eastern Alps, derives its name from Raetia.
The High Tauern mountain range in which Grossglockner, lies is on the border between the state of Carinthia and the state of Tyrol.
The Julian Alps cross the Italian border from Friuli into Slovenia's Municipality of Bovec. The highest mountain is Triglav at.
File:001 Faaker See lake and Karawanks mountains in Carinthia, Austria.jpg|thumb|right|Lake Faak and the Karawanks.
The Karawanks mountain range of the Southern Limestone Alps straddles the border between the Austrian state of Carinthia and the Slovenian Gorenjska. The range contains both the Meža Valley down to the confluence with the Drava Valley and the Municipality of Jezersko south of the Seeberg Saddle mountain pass, totalling and includes the municipalities of Črna na Koroškem, Mežica, Prevalje and Ravne na Koroškem, and Dravograd.
Austrian and Slovenian Carinthia has a very diverse landscape, with a predominance of hilly and mountainous terrain of Pleistocene origins and was sculpted by former glaciers. Over two thirds of Slovenian Carinthia is covered by forest and the amount of forested land is still increasing. The mountains of Peca and Raduha are in the eastern part of the Kamnik–Savinja Alps of northern Slovenia.
The Jenner is a northern Alpine mountain in southern Bavaria, Germany and it is part of the Göll massif within the Berchtesgaden Alps.
Rivers
The Alpine Rhine has as its source the Swiss canton of Grisons, which flows through the Chur Rhine Valley, or Grisonian Rhine Valley and Vorarlberg Rhine Valley. It later forms the border between Switzerland to the west and Liechtenstein and later Austria to the east.The Mur or Mura is a long river in Central Europe with a drainage basin that covers an area of. It rises in the Hohe Tauern national park of the Central Eastern Alps in Austria with its source being above sea level. It is a tributary of the Drava and subsequently the Danube. The major rivers in Tyrol are the Adige, Inn, and Drau. The major river in Carinthia is the Drau and the major river in Slovenia is the Sava.
National parks and protected places
was founded in 1981. It was originally set out in 1924 on a smaller scale and scrapped between 1944 and 1961.The mountains of the canton include part of a thrust fault that was declared a geologic UNESCO World Heritage Site, under the name Swiss Tectonic Arena Sardona, in 2008.
The Vienna Woods are a protected piece of upland forestry in Austria.
The Pasterze Glacier a protected piece of mountain glacier in Austria.
Classification
Geomorphology
The ranges are subdivided by several deeply indented river valleys, mostly running east–west, including the Inn, Salzach, Enns, Adige, Drava, and Mur valleys. According to the traditional Alpine Club classification of the Eastern Alps widely used by Austrian and German mountaineers, these mountain chains comprise several dozen smaller mountain groups, each assigned to four larger regions:- Northern Limestone Alps
- Central Eastern Alps
- Southern Limestone Alps
- Western Limestone Alps
Tectonics
The Alps comprise four main nappe systems:- The Helvetic nappes, with their main ranges in the Western Alps. They consist primarily of Cretaceous and Paleogene sedimentary rocks in multiple folds.
- The Penninic nappes, Jurassic sediments of the Tethys Ocean stretching from the Eurasian to the Apulian Plate, pushed together during the Alpine orogeny. They comprise a Flysch zone and several crystalline rocks in geological windows, such as the Engadin window and the Hohe Tauern window in the Central Alps.
- The East Alpine system: the Northern Limestone Alps, made up of Mesozoic rocks, the Paleozoic slate and the greywacke zone, as well as the crystalline Central Eastern Alps, the Precambrian and Paleozoic remnants of a main strike.
- The South Alpine system south of the Periadriatic Seam. They mainly consist of Mesozoic and Paleozoic formations with little faults, whose nappes and folds are oriented towards the south.
History
The ice age
During the Würm glaciation, the Eastern Alps were drier than the Western Alps, with the contiguous ice shield ending in the region of the Niedere Tauern in Austria. This allowed many species to survive the ice age in the Eastern Alps where they could not survive elsewhere. For that reason, many species of plants are endemic to the Eastern Alps.Ancient history
The first signs of humans living in the area of present-day Liechtenstein can be dated back to the Middle Paleolithic era. Neolithic farming settlements appeared in the valleys around 5300 BCE.A Bronze Age settlement at the site goes back as far as the Pfyn culture, making Chur one of the oldest settlements in Switzerland. In ancient times, the area of what is today Ticino was settled by the Lepontii, a Celtic tribe. Later, probably around the reign of Augustus, it became part of the Roman Empire.
In ancient times, the region had long been inhabited by the Celts before it became part of the ancient Roman provinces of Raetia and Noricum. There were two Celtic tribes settled in the future Vorarlberg area: the Raeti in the highlands, and the Vindelici in the lowlands, i.e. the Lake Constance region and the Rhine Valley prior to the Romans conquered Vorarlberg area.
Rome conquered the area of the future Municipality of Schellenberg in 15BCE.