Читать книгу The Adlerweg. The Eagle's Way across the Austrian Tyrol онлайн

46 страница из 52

The chain is broken into a series of blocks by a number of north to south glacial river valleys that have broken through the mountains. As their name implies, the calcareous Alps are composed mostly of porous limestone, with the exact composition of this limestone varying from block to block. The two most significant geological aspects of the region are glaciation and karst country.

During the great ice ages, ice sheets covered all of central and northern Europe. As the ice retreated, great glaciers carved deep valleys through the Austrian Alps, the deepest and longest forming the Inn valley. Running east from the Engadine region of Switzerland right across Tyrol, where it separates the northern and central Alpine ranges, it reaches the Danube basin beyond Kufstein. Along its length, the Inn is joined by lateral glacial valleys flowing in from north and south. Most of the glaciers have long since melted and only a few remain, mostly in the high central Alps. The only remaining glacier encountered by the Adlerweg is Pazielferner above St Anton and upper Lechtal.