How Far The Appalachians Run Compared To The Alps

Long before the Alps began to rise, there was the Appalachians. While hundreds of millions of years have worn them down, geologists believe they were once as high as the Himalayas.

The Appalachian Mountains are more than twice as long as the Alps, at 2,000 miles compared to 750 miles in the Alps, and are also wider overall than this European mountain range. Despite being longer than the Alps, Appalachian peaks are much smaller overall than the Alps, with their highest point not even half the height of Mont Blanc.

The Appalachian Mountains are much older than the Alps, dating back to a time when every continent on Earth merged into one supercontinent. Today, if you hike the Scottish Highlands, thebn you're treading the same rock that was once part of the Appalachians, before the Atlantic Ocean pulled them apart.

Mapping the Appalachians and the Alps

The Appalachian Mountains were once called by John McPhee, a Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer, as a "long continuous welt." While the entire Appalachian Chain width ranges from 100 miles wide to 310 miles in some regions. A major subrange of the Appalachian Chain called the Blue Ridge Mountains, spans about 5 to 65 miles wide.

Although commonly regarded as an American mountain range, they do go up into Canada through Quebec, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Nova Scotia. In the US, the Appalachian Mountains extend northward through 18 states from the southern states of Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee, through Ohio and Pennsylvania, to Maine. The highest point in the Appalachian Mountains is Mount Mitchell at 6,684 feet in North Carolina, followed by Mount Craig in North Carolina at 6,647 feet and Mount Kuwohi at 6,643 feet, situated at the border of Tennessee and North Carolina within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

The Alps, meanwhile, are more than 125 miles wide at their widest point, and form a crescent that divides central Europe from Southern Europe. They cross over several international borders, which are France, Switzerland, Monaco, Liechtenstein, Italy, Germany, Austria, and Slovenia.

Their mountain peaks are far larger than the Appalachians, with the tallest being the 15,774 feet tall Mont Blanc situated between France and Italy. Its second tallest peak is Monte Rosa at 15,203 feet, which is settled on the Swiss and Italian border. The third contender, the Dom, at 14,911 feet, is located entirely in Switzerland.

Appalachians Geology

The Appalachians were formed through several orogenies (mountain-building events), but the most impactful one occurred from 320 to 260 million years ago when two supercontinents slammed into each other.

North America was combined with Eurasia in a supercontinent called Euroamerica, which collided with Gondwana, containing South America, Africa, Antarctica, India, and Australia, forming one massive continent: Pangea. This tectonic collision caused the Gondwana crust to be thrust over the North American crust, creating large mountain peaks.

Geologists have compared this event to the one that formed the Himalayas much later on when the Indian subcontinent collided with Eurasia. As a result, the mountain peaks at this point could have been as high as the modern-day Himalayas, but over time they have been significantly worn down due to erosion from water, rain, wind, and glaciers.

However, beginning around 200 million years ago, Pangea began to split apart. Laurasia would remain connected until 80 million years ago, when North America broke away from Eurasia. However, remnants of that collision can still be seen in other mountain ranges, such as the Scottish Highlands and the Anti-Atlas Mountains of Morocco. Both of these ranges are geologically the same mountain range as the Appalachians, but they have been separated by the Atlantic Ocean.

The Alps Geology

The Alps, meanwhile, formed hundreds of millions of years after the Appalachians during the Alpine Orogeny. This event began 65 million years ago with the collision of the African and Eurasian plates.

During this collision, the European plate began to subduct under the African plate. This event not only formed the Alps, but also closed the Tethys Sea. The Mediterranean Sea is what remains of that ocean, along with the Black and Caspian Seas. This geological event also created other mountain ranges in Europe such as the Pyrenees of Spain and the Carpathian Mountains in Central and Southeast Europe.

The Alpine Orogeny started about 65 million years ago, and continues to today in some ranges. This period in general was a time of massive mountain building across the entire world, with the Rockies and Himalayas both forming.

Unlike the Appalachian Mountains, the Alps show signs that they are still growing in some regions, due to what's known as crustal rebound. This occurs when heavy glaciers melt, enabling the crust to rise up. In sections of the Alps with low erosion rates, this uplift is outpacing erosion. For example, in eastern Switzerland, erosion only wears away 0.5 inches of rock every 1,000 years, whereas in Valais in southern Switzerland, erosion is much higher at 25 feet per 1,000 years.

There is debate about what causes this difference in erosion, with some scientists arguing it comes down to the shape of the mountains. Some scientists argue that steeper slopes erode more slowly than others, while others argue that steeper slopes erode faster, but it may come down to scale and material. Steeper slopes erode fast, until they are bare rock, and then the rock actually shields it from rapid wear. Overall, the Central Alps are still growing at 31 inches per 1,000 years, while the Western Alps are neither growing nor shrinking, and the eastern Alps are shrinking.

Climate and wildlife

The climate in the Alps varies significantly, as it sits at the intersection of moist air from the Atlantic, cold air from the north, and warm air from the Mediterranean. Snow cover and temperatures vary significantly depending on the region, with southern mountains having higher temperatures than northern ones. It ranks second in Europe for its diversity of flora and fauna, with 4,500 species of vascular plants and 80 mammal species.

Because the Appalachian Mountains range across the northern and southern U.S., its climate varies significantly as well, with humid climates in Georgia to heavy snowfalls in Maine and Canada. In certain areas of the Appalachians, extreme weather events can occur, such as heavy rains on Mount Mitchell of more than 100 inches, or once the strongest wind gust ever recorded. Mount Washington in New Hampshire reported a wind gust of 231 miles per hour in 1934. Across its deciduous forests, there are 150 species of trees, such as tulip trees, hemlocks, and chestnut oaks. Some of the most iconic wildlife of this region are moose far up north and black bears.

Tectonic plates determined their shape

The Alps and the Appalachians were both formed by the same force: tectonic activity. However, the shape and length of the mountains were determined by the collision point, with one mostly continuous mountain range forming across most of the eastern U.S. in the Appalachian Mountains, and the Alps shoved up alongside other mountain ranges across Europe, along with the Tethys Sea shrinking down into the Mediterranean Sea.

Due to its younger age and that they are still rising in places, the Alps have also maintained much higher peaks than the Appalachian Mountains. There are many other factors that make these mountain ranges distinct, forming their culture, borders, and geography, but what makes them similar is their diversity of environments and climates that have created distinct cultures that still persist today, from the yodelers of the Alps to the tall tales of the Appalachian Mountains. In addition, both are alike in that they draw huge numbers of tourists, from the most visited national park, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the challenging climbs of the Alps.