Station 6 Geologiepfad Malbun: Eine Felswand erzählt von der Geschichte der Alpen

The rock face on the opposite side tells a lot about the formation of the mountains. The stratification of deposits on the seabed, the inclination of the layers during the uplift of the seabed and finally the formation of the landscape forms with valleys, gorges and mountain ridges. Layer by layer, limestone mud was deposited on the bottom of a sea over thousands of years about 200 million years ago and slowly hardened into the stone of the rock face. This happened under the sea mirror. About 60 million years ago, the seabed began to rise out of the water. The layers were tilted and shifted far in the form of huge layer packages. This inclination can also be seen from here in the mountains on the other side of the Rhine Valley. It is only in the last few million years that weathering and erosion have created the landscape that is today.

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Geological terms

Stratigraphy is the name of the geological science that deals with the age and formation of rock layers. It investigates when and under what conditions the rock layers in the sea were formed. Tectonics is the name of the geological science that investigates how and why large rock packages were spatially displaced, lifted out of the sea, deformed and broken. Tectonics explains the formation of mountains from the former seabed. Geomorphology is the name of the geological science that explains how today's landscapes are formed by erosion.