World Heritage
Thrust faults of this kind are not uncommon in many mountain chains around the world, but the Glarus thrust is a well accessible example and has as such played an important role in the development of geological knowledge on mountain building. For this reason the area in which the thrust is found was declared a geotope, a geologic UNESCO world heritage site, under the name "Swiss Tectonic Arena Sardona." The area of this "tectonic arena" encompasses 32,850 hectares of mainly mountainous landscape in 19 communities between the Surselva, Linthtal and Walensee. In the arena are a number of peaks higher than 3000 meters, such as Surenstock (its Romansh name is Piz Sardona, from which the name comes), Ringelspitz and Pizol.
In 2006 the Swiss government made a first proposal to declare the region world heritage to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The IUCN then did not find the area to have an extraordinary or universal value and denied the proposal. The Swiss made a new, this time successful proposal in March 2008. The region was declared world heritage in July 2008, because "the area displays an exceptional example of mountain building through continental collision and features excellent geological sections through tectonic thrust."
The American Museum of Natural History in New York exposes a full-scale reconstruction of the Glarus thrust.
Read more about this topic: Glarus Thrust
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