The Pyrenees – craggy rocks, rugged valleys

The 430 km Pyrenees mountain range separates the Iberian peninsula to the south from the rest of Europe to the north. The political border between France and Spain runs right through the Pyrenees mountains, with the small principality of Andorra embedded in the middle. The highest peak of the range is the 3,404 metre Pico de Aneto, which is surrounded by about 200 other 3,000 metre peaks. 

The people live off traditional pasture farming with sheep, cattle and goats grazing in the valley bottoms and alpine meadows. The geological features of the central range, which rose during the Tertiary Period between 50 and 100 million years ago to form the fold mountains, are dominated by sedimentary rocks called limestone. All scientific findings point to the fact that the Pyrenees were covered by a solid ice cover during the last Ice Age. 

The melting of the ice cover on the one hand gave rise to the deep valleys and vertical peaks typical of the Pyrenees mountains, while the melt water, rich with living organisms, on the other hand led to sedimentation, whose biogenic processes in turn brought forth the limestone rich in calcium carbonate typical of the Pyrenees.