The Southern Alps are a mountain range that runs through the South Island of New Zealand lengthwise. The central core are has altitudes over 1,500 meters, 360km length and an average width of about 50 kilometers. The highest mountain, Mount Cook is 3,754m high. The Southern Alps are like the European Alps.
They reach heights as they occur in the eastern Alps and are partly glaciated. Also prominent peaks lie in the cool temperate climate zone and are covered under the low population density in New Zealand with forests. The geomorphology is similar, although the slopes fall suddenly on the northwest coast.
They were formed earlier than the European Alps, approximately 100 – 150 million years ago. Even today, there are 17 peaks over 3,000 meters high. Because of their location along the plate boundary between the Pacific and Australian plate, the Southern Alps are still in the so-called uplift phase. As part of the Pacific fire ring, they include volcanoes and earthquakes on the surface image of the mountain range. Hot springs supply in some areas, electricity and heat.
The Mountain forms a distinctive climate divide between the humid north and the west coast. The prevailing westerly winds cause weather phenomenon, known as the N’west arch (Northwest sheet). The moist air that flows over the mountains form an arc of clouds in the blue sky.
This weather pattern is often visible in the summer of Canterbury and North Otago. Southern Fiordland in the south to the Spenser Mountains in the north, are glaciated in the Southern Alps. The research project World Glacier Inventory (WGI), which catalogs all the glaciers from a 1 ha area, is one of the South Island glaciers around that carry an official name.
Its surface is added to a total of 1,159km² with an estimated ice volume of 53.3km³. In addition to many smaller individual glaciers, four major areas exist in the environment of Mount Cook, Mount Aspiring, Mount Whitcombe and Mount Tutoko.
The best-known glaciers of the Franz Josef and Fox glaciers are on the west coast. Because of the high flow speed, their glacier tongues extend right down to an altitude of 300 meters. Another special feature is that these glaciers are surrounded in the lower part of the temperate rainforest zone.
The Franz Josef Glacier was named by Julius von Haast, a German geologist, after the Austrian emperor. It is 12km long and 800m wide
The Fox Glacier is just 25 kilometers from the Franz Josef Glacier and has a length of 13.5km or even longer. It was named after the Prime Minister Sir William Fox. The longest glacier in the Southern Alps is the Tasman Glacier near Mount Cook, with a current length of 27 kilometers. It however, has now been increasingly shortened, so that already left much of the lower part is only a debris field.
The region is considered as very natural, since the tourism is limited. However, the Southern Alps are the main attraction for winter sports in New Zealand. The largest ski resort in the country is in the Ruapehu District in the North Island. In the Southern Alps, there are numerous national parks, including the Westland National Park,Mount Aspiring National Park and Mount Cook National Park.
