Dinaric Alps
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View of the central part of the Dinaric Alps (north=down) |
The
Dinaric Alps or
Dinarides (
Italian:
Alpi Dinariche;
Croatian and
Serbian:
Dinaridi or
Dinarsko gorje/
"懈薪邪褉懈写懈 or
"懈薪邪褉褋泻芯 谐芯褉褬械;
Slovenian:
Dinarsko gorstvo) form a
mountain chain in southern
Europe, spanning areas of
Slovenia,
Croatia,
Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Serbia,
Montenegro and
Albania.
They extend for 400 miles (645 km) along the coast of the
Adriatic Sea (northwest-southeast), from the
Julian Alps in the northwest down to the
Šar-
Korab massive, where the mountain direction changes to north-south. The highest mountain of the Dinaric Alps is the Prokletije, located on the border of eastern Montenegro and northern Albania, with the peak called "
Lake Crest" at 2,692 metres or 8,833 feet.
The Dinaric Alps comprise the most rugged and extensively mountainous area of
Europe outside of the
Caucasus,
Alps and
Scandinavian Mountains. They are formed largely of secondary and tertiary
sedimentary rocks of
dolomite,
limestone,
sand, and conglomerates formed by seas and lakes that had once covered the area. During the Alpine earth movements that occurred 50-100 million years ago, immense lateral pressures folded and overthrust the rocks in a great arc around the old rigid block of the north-east.
The Dinaric Alps were thrown up in more or less parallel ranges, stretching like necklaces from the
Julian Alps up to the areas of northern Albania and Kosovo where the mountainous terrain subsides to make way for the waters of
Drin and the fields of
Kosovo. The
艩ar and
Korab mountains then rise and the mountainous terrain continues southwards to the
Pindus of
Greece and the mountains of the
Peloponnese and
Crete,
Rhodes to the
Taurus Mountains of southern
Turkey.
The
Mesozoic limestone forms a very distinctive region of the
Balkans, notable for features such as the
Karst. The
Quarternary Ice Ages had relatively little direct geologic influence on the Balkans. No permanent
ice caps existed, and there is little evidence of extensive
glaciation. Only the highest summits of
Durmitor,
Orjen, and
Prenj have glacial valleys and
moraines as low as 600 metres. However, in the
Prokletije, a range on the northern Albanian border that runs east to west (thus breaking the general geographic trend of the Dinaric system), there is evidence of major glaciation.
One geological feature of great importance to the present-day landscape of the Dinarides must be considered in more detail: that of the limestone mountains, often with their attendant faulting. They are hard and slow to erode, and often persist as steep jagged escarpments, through which steep-sided
gorges and
canyons are cleft by the rivers draining the higher slopes.
The most extensive example of limestone mountains in Europe are those of the
Karst of the Dinaric Alps. Here, all the characteristic features are encountered again and again as one travels through this wild and underpopulated country. Limestone is a very porous rock, yet very hard and resistant to
erosion. Water is the most important erosive force, dissolving the limestone by chemical action. As it percolates down through cracks in the limestone it opens up fissures and channels, often of considerable depth, so that whole systems of underground drainage develop. During subsequent millennia these work deeper, leaving in their wake enormous waterless
caverns,
sinkholes, and
grottoes and forming underground labyrinths of channels and shafts. The roofs of some of these caverns may eventually fall in, to produce great perpendicular-sided gorges, exposing the water to the surface once more. The magnificent gorges of many of the Dinaric rivers, for example those of the
Vrbas,
Neretva,
Tara, and
Lim, are justly famous. The partially submerged western Dinaric Alps form the numerous islands and harbors along the Croatian coast.
Only along the Dinaric gorges is communication possible across the
Karst, and roads and railways tunnel through precipitous cliffs and traverse narrow ledges above roaring torrents. At the same time, the purity of these rocks is such that the rivers are crystal clear, and there is little soil-making residue. Rock faces are often bare of vegetation and glaring white, but what little soil there is may collect in the hollows and support lush vegetation, or yield narrow strips of cultivation.
Ruins of fortresses dot the mountainous landscape, evidence of centuries of war and the refuge the Dinaric Alps have provided to various military forces. The Dinarides provided shelter to the
Illyrians resisting
Roman conquest of the Balkans, which began with the conquest of the western
Adriatic coast in the third century BC. Rome conquered the whole of
Illyria in
168 BC. These mountains sheltered Illyrian resistance forces for many years until the area's complete subjugation by
14 AD.
The area remains underpopulated, and forestry and mining remain the chief economic activities in the Dinaric Alps.
Some of the mountains within the Dinarides are:
*
Bijela gora*
Biokovo*
Bjela拧nica*
Cer*
Crna Gora*
膶vrsnica*
Dinara, the
eponym of the chain.
*
Durmitor*
Igman*
Jahorina*
Kame拧nica*
Kopaonik*
Orjen*
Tara*
Trebevi膰*
Treskavica*
Velebit*
Zlatibor
