ALPACA

The abbreviation ALPACA means the Central European region Alpine-Pannonian-Carpathian . This region is of particular interest

• for geology and geomorphology - because of the diverse landscapes from alpine high mountains to low mountain ranges of different ages to the Hungarian lowlands ;
• for economic geography and a. because of important raw materials in the Ore Mountains, the oil and natural gas in the Vienna Basin or the gravel terraces and power plants on the Danube and its major tributaries;
• for geophysics because of the great differences in the structure of the earth's crust . So has z. B. the Moho surface (interface to the earth's mantle ) here a strongly varying depth of about 20 km to 70 km;
• for the humanities and politics because of the diverse peoples, languages ​​and cultural zones.

The term ALPACA was coined around 1995 by the geoscientists of the Hexagonale -cooperation (today Central European Initiative (CEI)) in order to bundle the common research goals.