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An Outstanding Mountain: The Matterhorn Michel Marthaler and Henri Rougier 13 Abstract Unique for its shape and history, the Matterhorn is an iconic mountain of the Zermatt region, in the canton of Valais, Switzerland. The rocky pyramid is a superb isolated landform in the middle of the twenty-nine “4000” summits of the Valais Alps. From a geological point of view the rocks of the Matterhorn, and those of the neighbouring mountains, have an African origin: the Dent Blanche klippe is no more than a small continental raft stranded on the remains of the disappeared Tethys Sea. The rocks of the Zermatt area, which form the base of the Matterhorn, bear witness to this Mesozoic marine origin. The pyramid itself is constituted by a gneissic and schistose Paleozoic complex, less solid than it seems, while the summit part is formed of very resistant gneisses of the Valpelline series. Geomorphologically, the Mat- terhorn is a karling, i.e. an angular peak with steep walls and sharp ridges, carved away by glacial erosion. Most of the pyramid is continuously frozen, especially the north- ern face. Gelifraction and permafrost melting are very active today, causing rockfalls dangerous for climbers. Because of its incomparable shape, the Matterhorn has acquired a very special landscape notoriety within the geomorphosites of the Alps. Keywords Matterhorn Penninic nappes Tethys Sea Structural landforms Glacial landforms Permafrost M. Marthaler (&) Institute of Geography and Sustainability, University of Lausanne, Géopolis, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland e-mail: michel.marthaler@unil.ch H. Rougier University Lyon 3, rue Chevreul 18, Lyon Cedex 07, 69362 Lyon, France e-mail: henri.rougier@editionslep.ch 13.1 Introduction The Matterhorn (45°58’21’’ N, 7°39’18’’ E; 4478 m a.s.l.) is situated at the Swiss–Italian border, in the upper part of the Vispa Valley (Mattertal), and it dominates the famous tourist resorts of Zermatt in the north and Breuil-Cervinia in the south (Fig. 13.1). It is located in the heart of a massif which gathers the highest concentration of “4000 s” in the Alps: 29 summits. The Matterhorn is far from being the highest peak in the Alps but it is certainly the most iconic. Its shape resembling a colossal pyramid is extraordinary, as is the geological adventure that the landscape and rocks tell: it allows exploring the four eras of Earth’s history, from the Paleozoic to the Quaternary, i.e. more than 400 million years. What makes the Matterhorn so unique is its isolation: seen from an airplane, it seems that it has managed to create a kind of vacuum around it in order to assert its dominant position (Fig. 13.2). Zermatt is one of the most famous tourist resorts in Switzerland and in the world, nestled at the bottom of an umbilicus in the upper part of a “lost valley” (Taugwalder 1979). In 2017, it had 6,823 permanent inhabitants and 30,210 tourist beds. With more than 2 million tourist nights per year (2,087,944 nights in 2017, 55% in winter, 45% in summer; Zermatt Tourismus 2017), Zermatt is one of the most famous and active tourist destinations in Switzerland. The Matterhorn (called ds Horu by the Zermatt inhabi- tants and La Becca in the Italian side) is part of the legendary mountains which would probably be nothing without the town or village for which they are the “domestic mountain” (Hausberg in German) (Rougier 2002, 2010). From this point of view, it is logical to assimilate Zermatt and its Matterhorn to Interlaken and its Jungfrau or Chamonix and its Mont Blanc. However, the aesthetics and beauty of the landscape are not enough to make the Matterhorn an exceptional mountain. Remarkably, the mountain takes on a very different look depending on the side by which it is approached. From Valtournenche or Breuil/Cervinia, seen © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 E. Reynard (ed.), Landscapes and Landforms of Switzerland, World Geomorphological Landscapes, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43203-4_13 187PDF Image | An Outstanding Mountain The Matterhorn
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