Alfeld wind hole
| Alfeld wind hole
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 Entrance Alfelder Windloch |
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| Location: | Kauerheim, Franconian Alb , Germany | |
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Geographic location: |
49 ° 24 '49.8 " N , 11 ° 33' 2.3" E | |
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| Cadastral number: | E 11 | |
| Geology: | dolomite | |
| Type: | Crevice cave | |
| Discovery: | 1694 | |
| Show cave since: | No | |
| Lighting: | No | |
| Overall length: | 2200 meters | |
| Level difference: | 52 meters | |
| Particularities: | Closed October - April | |
The Alfelder Windloch is a natural karst cave near Kauerheim, a district of the Middle Franconian community of Alfeld in the district of Nürnberger Land in Bavaria .
location
The cave is located about 1800 meters south of Alfeld north of Kauerheim on the southern slope of the Schwarzenberg.
description
The Alfelder Windloch is also called the Windloch bei Kauerheim, Höhle im Schwarzenberg or Schwarzenberghöhle. After the Mühlbachquellhöhle in the Altmühltal , this cave is the second largest in the Franconian Alb with a total length of around 2200 meters . The maximum height difference is about 52 meters.
The cave is as an Alfelder wind hole in the cave cadastre Fränkische Alb (HFA) as E 11, as a geotope with the number 574H005, as a natural monument (ND-Nr. ND-05169), as part of an FFH area (6335-305 caves of the northern Franconian Alb ) and registered as a ground monument D-5-6535-0001. It is located in a complex of fossil sponge reefs in the Malm Delta and is geologically divided into two parts, which are separated by an interlocking area. The large entrance hall is under one elevation and the so-called new parts are in a second. As a result, the fracture system is divided into several floors. The system is a labyrinth-like highly branched and partly to only extreme bottlenecks navigate . The inconspicuous, partially bricked, approximately 80 × 40 centimeter entrance is located in a collapse funnel . The approximately 120 × 70 × 5 meter large entrance hall is littered with collapse. The hall is one of the largest in the Franconian Alb, but appears smaller due to the steep drop of 45 degrees. Numerous paths and holes branch off from the hall into the new parts. Different colored arrows in each direction make it even more difficult to find your way. The paths are marked by heavy collapse and are connected with climbing areas and crevices that are sometimes at right angles to one another. There are almost no stalactites or sintered jewelry worth mentioning . Sometimes it was robbed or destroyed in the entrance area. The most famous parts of the cave are the "Elephant Foot Hall", the "Sand Hall", the "Soap Bubble" (also called "Cathedral"), the "Mailbox" and the "Altar Hall" with the distinctive "RIP stone" (table). The "elephant foot hall" is a layer joint up to 2.50 meters high, which has beautiful solution forms ( pits ) in the ceiling area . The "soap bubble" has a hemispherical profile about 15 × 15 meters. The "mailbox" is a challenge, especially for tall visitors.
history
The cave has been known for centuries. According to the cave explorer Christian Schöffel , the oldest documented mention is from 1694 (1679?). In 1708 Johann Jakob Baier , a professor of medicine at the University of Altdorf , described the cave in his Oryctographia Norica . First attempts at development go back to Vicar Sondermann around 1856. Some legends and stories that go back to the pagan times and believe the cave as the seat of druids and diviners are entwined around the cave. In 1906 the Kauerheimer Schwarzbauer closed the cave with a door and guided tours were offered. However, a real show cave operation is not documented. The cave was only entered in 1921/22 by the Franconian cave explorers Richard Spöcker and Helmuth Cramer . The new parts were probably only discovered between 1960 and 1980. In 1992 the cave was comprehensively surveyed and mapped at 2200 meters.
The elephant foot hall was discovered on November 4, 1962 by H. Raum, A. Beyer and G. Euskirchen and entered for the first time, cathedral and mailbox about a year later. The floor of the first two rooms was littered in places with fossil remains of Ice Age animals, including a thigh bone of a woolly rhinoceros, many fragments of reindeer ribs and a very well preserved molar tooth of a forest elephant. All finds were delivered to Florian Heller's palaeontological institute at the University of Erlangen . He carried out extensive excavations in the course of 1963 and was able to date the finds to the last interglacial period based on the mouse teeth that were discovered in the process. The up to 10 cm thick layers of bat droppings on the slabs in the middle of the elephant foot hall were also remarkable because of the great distance from the entrance.
Access
The cave is freely accessible from April to September. Since 1984 it has been closed with an iron rod from October to April due to the protection of the caves and the bats that spend the winter there . Because of the labyrinth-like branches it is difficult to keep your bearings. There are some dangerous climbing and silt spots in the cave system . Therefore, accidents happen again and again. The cave should only be entered by experienced speleologists with the appropriate equipment. It can only be reached on foot via a hiking trail marked with a blue point or a white 3 on a red background.
Individual evidence
- ↑ FHKF, Windloch (accessed on April 3, 2013)
- ↑ Cadastral information 10 HFGB (accessed on April 3, 2013; PDF; 526 kB)
- ↑ Geotop 575H005 (accessed March 20, 2020)
- ↑ 6335-305 caves of the northern Franconian Alb. (FFH area) Profiles of the Natura 2000 areas. Published by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation . Retrieved November 17, 2017.
- ^ Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation (accessed on April 3, 2013)
- ↑ Bergwacht Bayern: Cave rescue in the Alfelder Windloch , archive 2005 (accessed on April 3, 2013)
literature
- Stephan Lang: Caves in Franconia. Hersbrucker Switzerland and Upper Palatinate Jura . Hans Carl Verlag, Nuremberg 2006, ISBN 3-418-00390-7 .
Web links
- Wind hole at the Caveseekers (accessed April 3, 2013)
- Wind hole at the 68er Climbers (accessed on February 6, 2014)
- Wind hole at the Caveclimbers (accessed April 3, 2013)
- Windloch, Lochstein (accessed April 3, 2013)