* Astronomy

Outstanding for the past 15 million years

Switzerland's highest peaks in the geologically young central Alps have been this high for quite some time, as a new study shows. 15 million years ago Europes own mountain range was at least as high as today. Scientists at the Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (BiK-F), the Goethe University in Frankfurt and the ETH Zurich compared the isotopic ratios of water and oxygen in rocks in the Alps and Alpine foreland and were able to determine the height of the peaks in the past. The study was recently published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters.
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