Читать книгу The Swiss Alps онлайн

120 страница из 176

A better option is to break away from the road at the second path junction where a sign directs a cairned and sparsely waymarked route to the dinosaur tracks in 2hrs. This path avoids the road altogether, and cuts through the peaceful Gorge de Veudale (much longer than the Gorge du Vieux) and is the one to take unless, that is, your plan is to go only as far as the refuge at Vieux Emosson, in which case the better plan is to remain with the road. The cairned footpath route leads to the southern end of Lac du Vieux Emosson, about 45mins beyond the refuge, and continues to the site of the now famous dinosaur footprints.

THE VIEUX EMOSSON DINOSAURS

Discovered above the southern end of the Lac du Vieux Emosson by a French geologist in 1976, a group of fossilized tracks has been identified as those belonging to dinosaurs that lived around 240–65 million years ago. The rock slab in which the surprisingly small footprints are embedded, was once part of a sandy beach frequented by the herbivorous creatures. Laid down in shallow water during the Triassic period (about 230 million years ago), the sand and sediments were compressed and hardened as earth movements led to the disappearance of the ocean with the collision of continental tectonic plates. As the African plate shunted against its Eurasian neighbour, so the Alps were born, and rocks that had been formed below sea-level were thrust up and outward to reveal evidence of creatures that roamed long before the mountains came into existence.