Glacier foreland

Grundsee below the Langgletscher , a typical meltwater lake of the glacier foreland

When glaciers advance is defined as the area between the current glacier edge and the moraines that mark the last peak. The last peak of the glacier was in the Alps around 1850 and the area has since become ice-free due to melting and the associated retreat processes. Due to this relatively recent development of vegetation , fauna and also morphodynamics , the glacier foreland differs significantly from the surrounding landscape.

Glacier forelands offer the opportunity to observe the emergence of an ecosystem from the time it was first colonized. Not least because of this, such areas are often placed under nature protection.

Web links

• University of Graz: The glaciers - Bernina and Ötztal Alps in comparison
• Page no longer available , search in web archives: Swiss Federal Office for the Environment: Glacier: Eternal change in the program

literature

• Brigitta Verschbamer: Glacier foreland - a new living space is emerging. In: Heinz Slupetzky (Red.): Threatened Alpine Glaciers (= technical articles of the Austrian Alpine Association. Series: Alpine Raumordnung. 27, ZDB -ID 1064777-6 ). Austrian Alpine Association - Spatial Planning-Nature Conservation Department, Innsbruck 2005, pp. 56–59.