Landforms of High Mountains

158 Pages·2015·26.57 MB·English

by  Alexander Stahr

Alexander Stahr
Ewald Langenscheidt
Landforms of
High Mountains
Landforms of High Mountains
ThiSisaFMBlankPage
Alexander Stahr (cid:129) Ewald Langenscheidt
Landforms of High Mountains
AlexanderStahr EwaldLangenscheidt
Taunusstein Rotthalmu¨nster
Germany Germany
ISBN978-3-642-53714-1 ISBN978-3-642-53715-8(eBook)
DOI10.1007/978-3-642-53715-8
SpringerHeidelbergNewYorkDordrechtLondon
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Coverillustration:#AlexanderStahr,2014.AllRightsReserved.
Peitlerkofel(SassdePutia,2875m).HighestmountainofPeitlerkofelgruppeintheDolomites(Italy).
OnJune26,2009,partsoftheDolomiteswererecognizedbyUNESCO(UnitedNationsEducational,Scientificand
CulturalOrganization)asaserialWorldHeritageSite.ThePeitlerkofelmassifisaUNESCOWorldHeritageand
includesalltypicalrockformationsoftheDolomites.
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Preface
Whenthehighmountainscall,thentheycome:Thehikersandmountaineers,pupils,students,
scientists,thejuniors,theseniors,andthemoderateortheextremeones.Allofthemcomeand
theycomewithpleasure.Therearenoexactnumbers,butitmightbemillionsannuallywho
travelintothehighmountainsoftheworld.
All of us enjoy the beauties of the mountains: We take photographs, walk their valleys,
climb over their glaciers, and climb their walls. We think often we know what we see at
differentlandforms.However,canwealsodescribeorexplainthem?Andwhatactuallydowe
knowabouttheiremergence?Butwhatarethethingscalledwhichwesee?Whatexactlycan
wesayaboutthevariouslandforms?TousnameslikeReinholdMessner,SirEdmundHillary,
UeliSteck,GerlindeKaltenbrunner,orWandaRutkiewiczarefamiliar.Butdoweknowthe
terms“lapies”or“shoremoraine”?
Thisbookshallgiveinformationaboutthevariouslandformsinthehighmountains.Itisa
textbookwhichisunderstandableandillustratedrichly,anadviser,aswellasareferencebook.
Thebookthereforeaddressesboththeinterestedlaymanandpupilsandteachersorstudentsof
earth sciences for introduction to the geomorphological variety of high mountain areas.
However,itcannotandwillnotreplaceanyconventionaltextbook.Thesecondarydocuments
arereferredtointhebibliographytodeepenstudiesofthetopicsdealtwith.
MostgivenexamplesarefromEurope,Asia,andtheNorthandSouthAmericasaswellas
from Oceania. Completeness was not striven for. Anyway it would be impossible to discuss
comprehensivelytheenormousvarietyoflandformsinthehighmountainsinonebook.Photos
andtextualcontentthereforeconfinethemselvestoasubjectivechoice.
Our thanks go to Herbert Funk (Frankfurt am Main, Germany), Heiko Kurz (Mainz,
Germany), Dr. Johannes Thomas Weidinger (Gmunden, Austria), and Prof. Dr. Heinz Veit
(UniversityofBern,Switzerland)forleavingphotographicmaterials.Theexcellentphotosof
HerbertFunkfromSvalbard,Norway,andGreenlandcanbeseenontheWebsitehttp://www.
arcticimpressions.de. A wealth of photographs and other materials can be found at the U.S.
Geological Survey (http://www.usgs.gov) that can provide further insights into the world of
highmountains’geomorphology.
Withthisbookwehopetogivetoabroaderpublicabetterunderstandingofthefascinating
form variety in the high mountains and also an appreciation of the essential causal geomor-
phologicalrelationshipsinthehighmountainsregion.
Taunusstein,Germany AlexanderStahr
Rotthalmu¨nster,Germany EwaldLangenscheidt
Spring2014
v
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Contents
1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 HighMountainsandMan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 WhatDoes“HighMountain”Mean?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.3 TheOriginofHighMountains. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.4 ClimateandHighMountains. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.4.1 LeewardandWindwardEffects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.4.2 LocalWinds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.4.3 TemperatureandPrecipitation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.4.4 Exposure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.4.5 AltitudinalZonation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.4.6 ClimateChange. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2 LandformsDeterminedbyTectonics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.1 FoldsandNappes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2.2 FracturesandRelatedStructures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
2.3 ReliefsofFormerTimes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3 Volcanoes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.1 TheFormationofVolcanicMountains. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.2 TheDistributionofVolcanicMountains. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.3 TypesofVolcanoes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4 WeatheringandErosionFormHighMountains. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4.1 Weathering. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
4.1.1 PhysicalWeathering. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
4.1.2 ChemicalWeathering. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.2 Erosion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
4.2.1 Falls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
4.2.2 Slides. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
4.2.3 Flowages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.2.4 AbrasionandTransportation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
5 LandscapesCausedbyGeologicalStructureandRockFeatures. . . . . . . . . . 63
5.1 Structure-ControlledDevelopment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
5.2 ShapingDuetoRockFeatures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
6 ShapingofHighMountainsbySnow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
6.1 NivationHollows. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
6.2 ErosionbyMovingSnowBlankets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
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viii Contents
7 Glaciers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
7.1 TheFormationofGlaciers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
7.2 PropertiesofGlaciers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
7.2.1 MassBalance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
7.2.2 WhyDoesaGlacierFlow?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
7.2.3 GlacialSurge. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
7.3 AblationFormsonGlaciers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
7.4 TheStructureofGlaciers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
7.5 TypesofGlaciers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
7.6 GlacierFluctuations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
8 GlaciersFormtheLandscape. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
8.1 GlacialErosionForms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
8.2 GlacialDeposits. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
9 MeltwaterandLandscape. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
9.1 FluvioglacialandGlacialfluvialDeposits. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
10 WaterandHighMountains. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
10.1 Torrents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
10.2 MountainTorrents. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
10.3 Lakes. . . . .. . . . .. . . . . .. . . . .. . . . . .. . . . .. . . . .. . . . . .. . . . .. . . 139
11 HowManShapestheHighMountains. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
PictureCredits. .. . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . .. . . . . 153
AbouttheAuthors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
FurtherReading. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
1
Introduction
A.StahrandE.Langenscheidt,LandformsofHighMountains, 1
DOI10.1007/978-3-642-53715-8_1,#Springer-VerlagBerlinHeidelberg2015