Mürzsteg Alps
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The Mürzsteg Alps or Mürztal Alps () are a mountain range in the
Eastern Alps The Eastern Alps are usually defined as the area east of a line from Lake Constance and the Alpine Rhine valley, up to the Splügen Pass at the Main chain of the Alps, Alpine divide, and down the Liro (Como), Liro River to Lake Como in the south. ...
(
Northern Limestone Alps The Northern Limestone Alps (), also called the Northern Calcareous Alps, are the ranges of the Eastern Alps north of the Central Eastern Alps located in Austria and the adjacent Bavarian lands of southeastern Germany. The distinction from the ...
), which lie in the Austrian state of
Styria Styria ( ; ; ; ) is an Austrian Federal states of Austria, state in the southeast of the country. With an area of approximately , Styria is Austria's second largest state, after Lower Austria. It is bordered to the south by Slovenia, and cloc ...
, with a small part of the range in
Lower Austria Lower Austria ( , , abbreviated LA or NÖ) is one of the nine states of Austria, located in the northeastern corner of the country. Major cities are Amstetten, Lower Austria, Amstetten, Krems an der Donau, Wiener Neustadt and Sankt Pölten, which ...
. The highest peak is the Hohe Veitsch () in the centre of the group, while largest massif is the Schneealpe () in the northwest, near the Rax. The following ranges border on the Mürzsteg Alps: to the north the Türnitz Alps, to the northeast the
Gutenstein Alps The Gutenstein Alps () are a mountain range in the Eastern Alps in Central Europe, and the northeasternmost part of the Northern Limestone Alps, reaching heights over 1,000 m. Topography Die Gutenstein Alps are separated in the north fr ...
, to the east the Rax-Schneeberg Group, to the southeast the Prealps east of the Mur (specifically the Fischbach Alps) and to the west the Hochschwab Mountains.


Geology

The range is part of the Styrian-Lower Austrian Limestone Alps and is separated from its neighbouring groups by the Mürz valley (part of the tectonically active Mur-Mürz Furrow), the upper reaches of the Mürz (main settlement: Mürzsteg) and the road over the Styrian Seeberg Pass. It is described by geologists as a ridge-and-basin
facies In geology, a facies ( , ; same pronunciation and spelling in the plural) is a body of rock with distinctive characteristics. The characteristics can be any observable attribute of rocks (such as their overall appearance, composition, or con ...
. The majority of its rocks date to the
Triassic The Triassic ( ; sometimes symbolized 🝈) is a geologic period and system which spans 50.5 million years from the end of the Permian Period 251.902 million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Jurassic Period 201.4 Mya. The Triassic is t ...
period and include Wetterstein Dolomite, Hallstatt Limestone and Mürztal strata (dark, hornstein-dominated
limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...
s and
marl Marl is an earthy material rich in carbonate minerals, Clay minerals, clays, and silt. When Lithification, hardened into rock, this becomes marlstone. It is formed in marine or freshwater environments, often through the activities of algae. M ...
s with foraminifers,
brachiopod Brachiopods (), phylum (biology), phylum Brachiopoda, are a phylum of animals that have hard "valves" (shells) on the upper and lower surfaces, unlike the left and right arrangement in bivalve molluscs. Brachiopod valves are hinged at the rear e ...
s and other
fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...
s).
The south of the range belong to the greywacke zone (rocks from the New
Palaeozoic The Paleozoic ( , , ; or Palaeozoic) Era is the first of three geological eras of the Phanerozoic Eon. Beginning 538.8 million years ago (Ma), it succeeds the Neoproterozoic (the last era of the Proterozoic Eon) and ends 251.9 Ma at the start of ...
and the Lower Triassic).


Mountain huts

* Graf-Meran House ( ÖTK, , on the highlands of the Hohe Veitsch) * Schneealpen House (ÖAV, , on the Schauerkogel/Schneealpe) * Hinteralm House ( ÖAV, , north of the Schneealpe) * Kutatsch Hut (, open shelter belonging to the ÖAV on the Schneealpe) * Lurgbauer Hut (private, , on the upper slopes of the Schneealpe) * Michlbauer Hut (private, , on the upper slopes Schneealpe) * Tonion Hut ( Friends of Nature, , on the Tonion) * Kaarl Hut (private, , west of Mürzzuschlag)


External links


Mürzsteg Alps on kamdoalp.cz - Hikes description, prominent peaks
{{DEFAULTSORT:Murzsteg Alps Mountain ranges of the Alps Northern Limestone Alps Greywacke zone Mountain ranges of Styria Mountain ranges of Lower Austria