Pyrenees


The Pyrenees are a mountain range straddling the border of France and Spain. They extend nearly from their union with the Cantabrian Mountains to Cap de Creus on the Mediterranean coast, reaching a maximum elevation of at the peak of Aneto.
For the most part, the main crest forms a political divide between the states of Spain and France, with the microstate of Andorra sandwiched in between. Historically, the Crown of Aragon and the Kingdom of Navarre extended on both sides of the mountain range.

Etymology

In Greek mythology, Pyrene is a princess who gave her name to the Pyrenees. The Greek historian Herodotus says Pyrene is the name of a town in Celtic Europe. According to Silius Italicus, she was the virgin daughter of Bebryx, a king in Mediterranean Gaul by whom the hero Hercules was given hospitality during his quest to steal the cattle of Geryon during his famous Labours. Hercules, characteristically drunk and lustful, violates the sacred code of hospitality and rapes his host's daughter. Pyrene gives birth to a serpent and runs away to the woods, afraid that her father will be angry. Alone, she pours out her story to the trees, attracting the attention of wild beasts who tear her to pieces.
After his victory over Geryon, Hercules passes through the kingdom of Bebryx again, finding the girl's lacerated remains. As is often the case in stories of this hero, the sober Hercules responds with heartbroken grief and remorse at the actions of his darker self, and lays Pyrene to rest tenderly, demanding that the surrounding geography join in mourning and preserve her name: "struck by Herculean voice, the mountaintops shudder at the ridges; he kept crying out with a sorrowful noise 'Pyrene!' and all the rock-cliffs and wild-beast haunts echo back 'Pyrene!'... The mountains hold on to the wept-over name through the ages." Pliny the Elder connects the story of Hercules and Pyrene to Lusitania, but rejects it as fabulosa, highly fictional.
Other classical sources derived the name from the Greek word for fire, . According to Greek historian Diodorus Siculus "in ancient times, we are told, certain herdsmen left a fire and the whole area of the mountains was entirely consumed; and due to this fire, since it raged continuously day after day, the surface of the earth was also burned and the mountains, because of what had taken place, were called the Pyrenees."

Geography

Political divisions

The Spanish Pyrenees are part of the following provinces, from east to west: Girona, Barcelona and Lleida, Huesca and Zaragoza, Navarra and Gipuzkoa.
The French Pyrenees are part of the following départements, from east to west: Pyrénées-Orientales, Aude, Ariège, Haute-Garonne, Hautes-Pyrénées, and Pyrénées-Atlantiques.
The independent principality of Andorra is sandwiched in the eastern portion of the mountain range between the Spanish Pyrenees and French Pyrenees.
File:Aneto 01.jpg|thumb|Pico de Aneto, the highest mountain of the Pyrenees, Aragon
File:Pic de Bugatet.jpg|thumb|Pic de Bugatet in the Néouvielle massif
File:El Turbó..jpg|thumb|left|El Turbón, 2,492 m
File:Gavarnie-Cirque.JPG|thumb|Cirque de Gavarnie with its 422 metre high waterfall, Occitanie

Physiographical divisions

, the Pyrenees may be divided into three sections: the Atlantic, the Central, and the Eastern Pyrenees. Together, they form a distinct physiographic province of the larger Alpine System division.
In the Western Pyrenees, from the Basque Mountains near the Bay of Biscay of the Atlantic Ocean, the average elevation gradually increases from west to east.
The Central Pyrenees extend eastward from the Somport pass to the Aran Valley, and they include the highest summits of this range:
In the Eastern Pyrenees, with the exception of one break at the eastern extremity of the Pyrénées Ariégeoises in the Ariège area, the mean elevation is remarkably uniform until a sudden decline occurs in the easternmost portion of the chain known as the Albères.

Foothills

Most foothills of the Pyrenees are on the Spanish side, where there is a large and complex system of ranges stretching from Spanish Navarre, across northern Aragon and into Catalonia, almost reaching the Mediterranean coast with summits reaching. At the eastern end on the southern side lies a distinct area known as the Sub-Pyrenees.
On the French side the slopes of the main range descend abruptly and there are no foothills except in the Corbières Massif in the northeastern corner of the mountain system.

Geology

The Pyrenees are older than the Alps: their sediments were first deposited in coastal basins during the Paleozoic and Mesozoic eras. During Ediacaran to Ordovician times, Pyrenees were located at the Northwest margin of Gondwana, where they formed a lateral continuity of neighbouring areas, such as the Montagne Noire and the Mouthoumet massifs and Southwestern territory of Sardinia. Between 100 and 150 million years ago, during the Early Cretaceous Period, the Bay of Biscay fanned out, pushing present-day Spain against France and applying intense compressional pressure to large layers of sedimentary rock. The intense pressure and uplifting of the Earth's crust first affected the eastern part and moved progressively to the entire chain, culminating in the Eocene Epoch.
The eastern part of the Pyrenees consists largely of granite and gneissose rocks, while in the western part the granite peaks are flanked by layers of limestone. The massive and unworn character of the chain comes from its abundance of granite, which is particularly resistant to erosion, as well as weak glacial development.
The upper parts of the Pyrenees contain low-relief surfaces forming a peneplain. This peneplain originated no earlier than in Late Miocene times. Presumably it formed at height as extensive sedimentation raised the local base level considerably.

Landscape

Conspicuous features of Pyrenean scenery are:
  • the absence of great lakes, such as those that fill the lateral valleys of the Alps
  • the rarity and relative high elevation of usable passes
  • the large number of the mountain torrents locally called gaves, which often form lofty waterfalls, surpassed in Europe only by those of Scandinavia
  • the frequency with which the upper end of a valley assumes the form of a semicircle of precipitous cliffs, called a cirque.
The highest waterfall is Gavarnie, at the head of the Gave de Pau; the Cirque de Gavarnie, in the same valley, together with the nearby Cirque de Troumouse and Cirque d'Estaubé, are notable examples of the cirque formation.
Low passes are lacking, and the principal roads and the railroads between France and Spain run only in the lowlands at the western and eastern ends of the Pyrenees, near sea level. The main passes of note are:
Because of the lack of low passes a number of tunnels have been created, beneath the passes at Somport, Envalira, and Puymorens and new routes in the center of the range at Bielsa and Vielha.
A notable visual feature of this mountain range is La Brèche de Roland, a gap in the ridge line, whichaccording to legendwas created by Roland.

Natural resources

The metallic ores of the Pyrenees are not in general of much importance now, though there were iron mines at several locations in Andorra, as well as at Vicdessos in Ariège, and the foot of Canigó in Pyrénées-Orientales long ago. Coal deposits capable of being profitably worked are situated chiefly on the Spanish slopes, but the French side has beds of lignite. The open pit of Trimoun near the commune of Luzenac is one of the greatest sources of talc in Europe.
There are many marble quarries in the Pyrenees, most of which were opened by the Romans in ancient times. Quarried intermittently, they provided prestigious marbles such as Grand Antique, statuary white marbles as well as coloured marbles used to decorate the royal palaces of the Louvre and Versailles in France and the Royal Palace of Madrid in Spain.
Mineral springs are abundant and remarkable, and especially noteworthy are the hot springs. The hot springs, among which those of Les Escaldes in Andorra, Panticosa and Lles in Spain, Ax-les-Thermes, Bagnères-de-Luchon and Eaux-Chaudes in France may be mentioned, are sulfurous and mostly situated high, near the contact of the granite with the stratified rocks. The lower springs, such as those of Bagnères-de-Bigorre, Rennes-les-Bains, and Campagne-sur-Aude, are mostly selenitic and not hot.

Climate

The amount of precipitation the range receives, including rain and snow, is much greater in the western than in the eastern Pyrenees because of the moist air that blows in from the Atlantic Ocean over the Bay of Biscay. After dropping its moisture over the western and central Pyrenees, the air is left dry over the eastern Pyrenees. The winter average temperature is.
Sections of the mountain range vary in more than one respect. There are some glaciers in the western and snowy central Pyrenees, but there are no glaciers in the eastern Pyrenees because there is insufficient snowfall to cause their development. Glaciers are confined to the northern slopes of the central Pyrenees, and do not descend, like those of the Alps, far down into the valleys but rather have their greatest lengths along the direction of the mountain chain. They form, in fact, in a narrow zone near the crest of the highest mountains. Here, as in the other great mountain ranges of central Europe, there is substantial evidence of a much wider expanse of glaciation during the glacial periods. The best evidence of this is in the valley of Argeles Gazost, between Lourdes and Gavarnie, in the département of Hautes-Pyrénées.
The annual snow-line varies in different parts of the Pyrenees from about above sea level. On average the seasonal snow is observed at least 50% of the time above between December and April.