The Alps in Natural Perspective
20 June 2025
Disasters in the Alpine region and Switzerland are in the news almost daily. Avalanches, landslides, melting glaciers and permafrost alternate with periods that are too dry and too wet. The climate is changing, and this has repercussions for humanity in many areas.
The causes and consequences are not discussed here; the emphasis is on a perspective of structural development that extends far beyond the short human existence, encompassing time scales of several thousand, even tens of thousands, or millions of years.
Moiry Glacier
The Gornergletscher
In a relatively short period, approximately 10,000 years since the end of the last Ice Age, humanity has managed to utilise almost the entire Swiss Alpine region for tourism, agriculture, residential areas, industry, roads and railways, tunnels, and hotels and restaurants, up to an altitude of 3,883 metres.
These grandiose (technological) achievements have grown considerably, especially since the mid-nineteenth century. However, for nature, 10,000 years doesn’t even represent a second on the scale of the Earth’s history, which spans over 4 billion years.
To put this story into concrete terms, approximately 100 million years ago, the area that is now Switzerland was still underwater as part of the Tethys Ocean. Over millions of years, marine sediments were slowly deposited on the seabed, gradually forming a mosaic of different rocks.
Around 30 million years ago, this ocean gradually disappeared, giving way to another process: the continental plates of Africa and Europe collided, and over a long period, the Alps emerged around 20 million years ago.
Since then, the Earth has undergone significant climatic changes. Around 100,000 years ago, the last great ice age began. Massive glaciers covered most of Switzerland, with only the highest peaks, including the Matterhorn, barely rising above them. The Matterhorn owes its distinctive pyramidal shape to the glaciers, which have polished the rocks over tens of thousands of years.
Gletschertöpfe, Gletschergarten Zermatt
Almost 90,000 years later, these glaciers had largely melted away. It was only between 1500 and 1800, during the Little Ice Age, that they again reached a greater extent. Before Roman times and until the end of the Middle Ages, glaciers only existed above 3,500 to 4,000 metres.
It’s a fact that change is happening much more quickly today. Since 1800, the population of Switzerland (and the world) has grown very rapidly, as has the use of the Alpine regions. Until the 20th century, industrialisation and other uses of the Alpine region were relatively low. Since 1900, use and colonisation have become increasingly intensive.
As a result, natural phenomena have become increasingly frequent sources of human tragedies. But who can still bear witness to the Flims landslide (Flimser Felzsturz), which occurred around 10,000 years ago, the tsunami (the so-called Tauredunum) on Lake Geneva caused by the collapse of a mountain in 563 AD? The earthquake in Basel in 1356, or the multiple disasters that occurred in Vals (die Lawinechronik), in the Grisons? It’s only nature that witnessed them.
Anyone who visits the Gornergrat (3,089 m), the Jungfraujoch (3,463 m), the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise (3,883 m) or the Aiguille du Midi (3,842 m) will enjoy the moment, the view, the panorama and the hikes.
However, it is also worth visiting the information rooms and museums. They not only offer glimpses of technological prowess but, above all, put nature at the centre.
The Trockener Steg
Gornergrat
Conclusion
This insight is essential not only for the perspective and context of the Earth’s development but also for the Alps in particular. It shows that nature, and therefore the Earth, is constantly changing and in motion and will remain so. The question, then, is how humanity is coping with this.
Today, the Alps are a fabulous open-air natural history museum, partly recognised by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The glacier gardens of Dossen, near Zermatt or in Lucerne, the slopes and glaciers of the Gornergrat, or the Matterhorn do not have this status, but it is merely a human qualification.
It in no way diminishes the grandeur of nature. There’s a Dutch proverb: ‘The sea gives, and the sea takes away’. The same applies to the Alps: the mountain gives, the mountain takes, in the past, present and future.
The Gletschergarten near Zermatt
Gornergrat
The Bernhard von Aosta Chapel
The Alpine Garden
