Mad about Science: The European Alps today

By Brenden Bobby
Reader Staff

Last week we learned about the 400 million years-long life of the European Alps, but very little about their impact on modern society, or conversely, the impact of modern society on them.

The mountain range spans eight countries: Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia. Human borders dividing these mountains have been redrawn countless times throughout history. Humans are confirmed to have been inhabiting the area for at least 5,000 years, encompassing the Paleolithic era and at least one ice age glaciation period.

It’s difficult to pinpoint the origin of the name “Alps.” It’s possible that the term originated from the Latin “albus” for white, which accurately describes the mountains’ snowy peaks. The word has roots in Greek bearing the same meaning.

The name “Albany” originates from this term as well, which is reflected in the name of the country Albania. Currently, “alp” or “alpes” may serve as a contraction of alpine, which refers to the area above the timberline.

Glacier buttercups in the European Alps. Courtesy photo.

Due to the sudden, sharp rise of the mountain peaks, traversing them has been a treacherous endeavor for much of human history. This changed in the wake of World War II when a number of countries invested a great deal of time tunneling through the mountains to open up commercial travel routes. These tunnels were dug using a combination of drilling, explosives and massive boring machines.

Some tunnels were bored out long before the conclusion of World War II. The Fréjus Rail Tunnel (also known as the Mont Cenis Tunnel) is an 8.5-mile tunnel completed in 1871 after 14 years of work. This sounds like an incredible span of time, but it had been projected to take more than 40 years to complete. It was bored from two directions simultaneously, with French engineers boring from the north and Italian engineers boring from the south, eventually meeting in the middle with a deviation as narrow as 16 inches.

Imagine being that accurate linking up with your friends underground when you’ve both been digging for miles with no GPS.

This feat was achieved using an early boring machine fitted with a shield and pneumatic drills. The machine would drill holes into the rock, then spray water into the holes to clear debris and reduce friction on the drills.

After eight or so hours of drilling, engineers would insert explosives into the bored holes and ignite them to blast apart huge chunks of rock. They’d clear the debris, then start the whole process over again.

This must have been a terrifying experience for anyone involved — crammed into a dark underground tunnel with thousands of feet of rock above your head, blasting holes through the mountainside and hoping none of it comes down on you. This must have been done hundreds of times on both sides.

Blowing a giant hole in a mountain isn’t sufficient. To ensure it doesn’t fill the void with incalculable tons of rock, the tunnel must be lined. This is often done with steel and concrete. Steel rebar gives the concrete lining form and structure, acting similarly to the bones in our body.

I couldn’t find how the Mont Cenis Tunnel was lined, but a technique used today is spraying a specialized concrete mixture called “shotcrete” onto surfaces with pressurized air. Imagine a really big airbrush, but it’s spraying wet concrete. Often, this is done not far behind the boring machine so as to maintain the structure and reduce the chances of catastrophic collapse.

Trains and automobiles aren’t the only things to have crossed the Alps. In 218 B.C.E., Carthaginian general Hannibal led an estimated 46,000 troops through the Alps to attack Rome on the Italian peninsula. Among these troops were as many as 8,000 cavalry and 38 war elephants. It’s the only time elephants have traversed the Alps, as far as we’re aware; unfortunately, many of them perished in the treacherous crossing.

Today, the pristine views, access to immense amounts of fresh water and rugged mountaineering paths have created a tourism boom for towns in the Alps.

The Principality of Liechtenstein, a microstate in the heart of the Alps, shares a shocking number of similarities with Bonner County. It’s a pristine, mountainous environment primarily supported by tourism and has a large amount of rural area utilized by farmers. Remarkably, though, its economy is driven by cutting-edge manufacturing and exports, allowing its citizens to avoid the fate of the typical tourist destinations — i.e. having all their land cleared for luxury establishments that a local workforce can’t afford to live in).

Aspire to be like Liechtenstein, Sandpoint.

The Alps are home to a vast variety of flora and fauna. Numerous plants grow exclusively in the Alps including the glacier buttercup — a form of Ranunculus — alpine rock-jasmine and Edelweiss, which can grow in rocky areas between 4,000 and 11,000 feet in elevation. Among the most recognizable fauna is the alpine Ibex, a large horned goat with unparalleled climbing ability.

Many species of fauna that call the Alps home have evolved to survive specifically within a niche found only in alpine conditions.

One of the most curious animals to call the Alps home is the alpine salamander, which has adapted to live above the snow line with a very peculiar feature among amphibians: it gives birth to live young instead of laying eggs. Live birth is often a more resource-intensive process, but it can be extremely beneficial for species living in difficult climates such as the high mountains.

Stay curious, 7B.