Rhine Glacier

The Rhine glacier was a glacier in the Appenzell Alps, which until the far north of Lake Constance greatly influenced the topography of the Swiss plateau and of Upper Swabia. Lake Constance is a Gletscherrandsee of the Rhine glacier. At the end of this period, the Rhine Falls was born.

The largest expansion had the glaciers during the Riss glaciation, in which he penetrated to the preglacial Danube and cordoned off the river bed of the ancient Danube. This huge Eisstauseen emerged. The Danube dam gave up the valley to Geisingen and dewatered by the Spaichinger gate into the Neckar. Here, the glacier reached about today Sigmaringen addition to about the area Nollhof and dammed the water of Lauchert up to 684 m above sea level. NN. The entrained boulders of the Rhine glacier backfilled the valleys of the ancient river system so thoroughly that the Danube its old bed was unable to make the melt-back of ice rißeiszeitlichen again and its tributaries had to create completely new valley routes.

The last major expansion was told of the glaciers in the Würm glaciation. Here, the Rhine glacier over the entire present-day eastern Switzerland and Lake Constance extended time. The huge river of ice reached a thickness of up to 1200 m, the mountains were bathed jutted above. The Santis was at this time so a Nunatak.

• Former glacier
• Rhine river system