Geo hiking trail Sonsbeck

Station on the Sonsbeck geological hiking trail.

The Geowanderweg Sonsbeck is a 1.2 km long educational trail over the ice age moraine landscape of Sonsbeck Switzerland in the Wesel district .

description

Designed as a circular route , the Sonsbeck geo-hiking trail leads from the Römerturm at the St. Gerebernus Chapel over the Bögelscher Weg to the observation tower on the Dürsberg through the hilly landscape. There are six stations along the route with illustrated boards that provide information about the geological features of the area and how it was created. Numerous break areas with wooden benches invite you to linger. You come to the Foundlingsweg via Dassendaler Weg. Boulders and drift stones from different eras of the earth's history are set up at eleven stations . They were found during gravel excavations on the Lower Rhine . From here it is not far to the starting point.

The observation tower on the Dürsberg has been closed for several years due to static problems. However, a new one is to be built soon.

The Sonsbeck geo-hiking trail is now part and endpoint of the GeoRoute Lippe long-distance cycle hiking trail, which leads from Ahlen in Westphalia to Sonsbeck .

history

The idea of creating a geological hiking trail in Sonsbeck came from the archaeologist and non-fiction author Wolfgang Dassel (* 1943; † 2005). In addition to his work as an engineer at the State Geological Office in North Rhine-Westphalia , he was involved in public relations. Together with the Sonsbeck Heimat- und Verkehrsverein, he realized the nature trail in Sonsbeck Switzerland in 1984. The moraine landscape owes its creation to the ice age glaciers of the Saale glaciation 250,000 years ago. From the observation tower on the Dürsberg, at 100 m above sea level one of the highest elevations on the Lower Rhine ridge, you have a good view of an arched structure that shows the end of a glacier tongue just before Xanten. Over the years, Wolfgang Dassel was able to delight many visitors with his tours and stories along the geological hiking trail.

In 2005, the geo-hiking trail was redesigned by the Sonsbeck Local Authority and Tourist Office and the display boards at the six stations were renewed and supplemented. Boulders made of tertiary and deep rock serve as waypoints. However, it might take a few years before the erratic boulder path was laid out. The idea for this comes from Maximilian Bittner, a member of the Association for Monument Preservation Sonsbeck eV The erratic boulders should give walkers a clear impression of which rocks can be found in the Sonsbeck subsoil and surrounding area. The company Hülskens GmbH & Co KG in Wesel provided the municipality of Sonsbeck with some boulders from the Lower Rhine, which were found during excavation work. The Geological Service NRW in Krefeld clarified the type of rock and its origin.

On September 13, 2012, the erratic boulder path was opened to the public. In 2014 the new entrance board was inaugurated.

Boulder path

Location51.618233 6.376266

The boulders on the 11 stations of the boulder path originate from gravel deposits on the Lower Rhine near Büderich and Ginderich (Wesel). Not all of them were shipped to the region with the Scandinavian glaciers. Some came embedded in drift ice floes from the south. Some contain fossils of marine animals and plants, others are ancient deep rocks from the beginning of Earth's history:


#	stone	origin	Age	Petrography
Station 01	Tertiary quartzite (brown coal quartzite)	Lower Rhine Bay	23.8 - 5 million years ( Miocene )	Yellowish to gray-white, hard, dense quartz rock emerged from marine sands of the Upper Oligocene .
Station 02	Tertiary fine sandstone	Lower Rhine Bay	28.4 - 23.8 million years (Upper Oligocene)	Gray to brown-gray fine to medium-grain sandstone.
Station 03	basalt	Eifel (Siebengebirge)	33.5 - 5 million years (Ogilocene - Miocene)	Basic, dark-colored cast rock (volcanic). The main components are quartz, feldspar and augite .
Station 04	dolomite	Eifel (Bergisches Land)	392 - 381 million years ( Middle Devon )	Yellowish-gray, fossil-poor dolomite stone. Dolomite is a type of calcite rich in magnesium. Limestone can be converted into dolomite by magnesium-containing solutions that occur along mountain faults.
Station 04	Quartzitic fine sandstone	Eifel	5 - 1.8 million years (Pliocene)	Gray to brownish-gray, quartzitic fine sandstone with a gray sinter-like coating of quartz (silicon dioxide)
Station 05	Red sandstone	Eifeler Triassic Bay, Spessart, Odenwald, Black Forest	251 - 245 million years ( Lower Triassic )	Red to red-white colored fine to coarse sandstone with individual clay pebbles (clay galls)
Station 06	Milk quartz	Rhenish Slate Mountains	320 - 258 million years ( Upper Carboniferous - Permian )	Light to white-gray quartz, opaque milky discoloration due to microscopic fluid inclusions during crystal growth.
Station 07	Devonian quartzite (reddish)	Rhenish Slate Mountains (southern Taunus)	417 - 358 million years (Devonian)	Metamorphic, dark to black-gray colored, fine to medium-grained rock; the red color on the layer surfaces is due to evidence of iron oxide ( hematite ).
Station 08	Devonian quartzite (brownish)	Rhenish Slate Mountains (southern Taunus)	417 - 358 million years (Devonian)	Metamorphic, gray to brownish-gray colored, fine to medium-grained rock.
Station 09	Phyllitic clay and siltstone ( clay slate )	Rhenish Slate Mountains (southern Taunus), Ardennes	417 - 358 million years (Devonian)	Metamorphic, dark to black-gray colored, "slate" sedimentary rock with newly formed, silky, shiny layered silicates ( muscovite , diorite and chlorite ) that emerged from mountain formation under high pressure-temperature conditions
Station 09	Greywacke	Rhenish Slate Mountains	417 - 296 million years (Devonian - Carboniferous)	Gray to brownish-gray, medium to coarse-grained rock with 50 - 70% quartz, 2 - 30% feldspar and 2 - 13% rock fragments.
Station 10	Gneiss	Scandinavia	<1,000 million years	Metamorphic crystalline or sedimentary rock. Orthogneiss is formed from igneous rocks and is usually reddish in color. Paragneiss emerged from sedimentary rock and is often gray-white in color.
Station 11	granite	Scandinavia	300,000 - 1,900 million years	Acid, fine to coarse-grained, igneous rock (plutonite), consisting of quartz, feldspar and mica .