Irregular rainfall distribution over the past ten million years has influenced the shape of the Andes mountain range, according to a Swiss geology professor. The result is that the western side of the central Andes is a flat dry slope, while the eastern side is verdant and hilly – similar to central Switzerland’s Napf region. Fritz Schlunegger of Bern University teamed up with Kevin Norton of New Zealand to discover that the interaction between tectonic uplift and erosion is very much controlled by the local precipitation rates. Read More
