Eastern Alps 2023

In 2023, Isabel returned to another valley in the Tauern Window in the Eastern Alps, this time with COOLER’s Peter van der Beek and Cody Colleps, with the aim of collecting more bedrock samples for (U-Th)/He (apatite) and ⁴He/³He analysis.

The Tauern Window offers not only beautiful views of glacial landscapes but is also home to diverse alpine wildlife between small traditional farms. Many valleys are part of the NationalparkHohe Tauern which means there are further restrictions for people planning to work in these areas, to protect wildlife from ecological damage. While the valleys we visited in 2022 were outside of the national park and special designated wildlife sites, this year we planned to collect our final samples in 2023 in the Krimmler Achental, which is within the park. As such, it was important to us to work with the park on our sampling plans to mitigate our impact, and ensure we receive their permission to work. This can sometimes take extra time and planning but is always worth it!

Equipped with our permission letters, lots of rain gear, and the usual tools of a hammer and chisel, we entered the Krimmler Achental from Krimml by foot and spent several days hiking and sampling up to the Italian border at the valley head, and back to our base in Krimml.

This valley is clearly glacially overprinted, with a defined U-shaped cross profile, and two distinct knickzones which presented steeper climbs than the otherwise gentle incline at the valley floor. It is an ideal place to collect a longer elevation profile, i.e. an array of samples along the same valley but at different elevations. Collecting such a profile with allow us to further validate the exhumation history of the area already recorded in samples from the 2022 field campaign nearby. But also, it provides an ideal natural location to test whether these knickzones are indeed glacially controlled as they appeared to be from the field, and if so, what that means for intensity of progressive glaciations in this area since the Pliocene-Quaternary.

This was our final trip to Austria within the COOLER project, and now we are eagerly analysing and modelling our sample ages to see what the western Tauern Window can reveal about its glacially controlled topographic evolution.