Station 5 Geologiepfad Malbun: Spuren der Eiszeit, wo man hinblickt

Glaciers formed the Malbuntal for about two million years. Glaciers are formed when not all the snow melts in summer. It accumulated and is compacted into ice under its own weight. This becomes mobile and slowly flows down to the valley. In the process, it pulls debris along at the bottom and scrapes off the rock. This is how the basins of the main valley and the side valleys were formed during the Ice Age. The landscapes that lay under the ice are still rounded today. The mountain peaks above are rugged and angular. They lie above the grinding line and protruded from the glacier mass during the Ice Age. When the glaciers retreated, the debris they had carried with them remained. It is called moraine. Today, the moraines are covered by meadows and forests.

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Is the ice age really over?

The most recent geological era is called the Quaternary. It took two million years. After the Earth had been warmer and ice-free everywhere for millions of years, glaciers advanced on many land masses in the Quaternary. At the last peak of the ice, about 20,000 years ago, the Alpine valleys were so filled with glaciers that only the highest mountain ranges protruded from the ice masses. Even though glaciers are significantly smaller today, there are still large masses of ice on some of the earth's land masses. From a geological point of view, we therefore still live in the Quaternary, i.e. in the age of the ice ages.