Big sand

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Panorama Big sand
Footpath through the Great Sand

The Große Sand is a small, but geo-ecologically and botanically nationally significant nature reserve in Mainz . Many rare plants and animals can be found in the Großer Sand nature reserve. Some of the native plants such as the sand solder ( Onosma arenaria ) are only found here in a few specimens in Germany.

The inland dune area was created after the last ice age ( Würmglacial ) and the first repopulation by steppe plants around 12,000 years ago. On the easily warm, dry and nutrient-poor sandy soil of the Mainz Basin , steppe plants preferentially grow as relic flora from this period, which are otherwise only to be found in south-east European and inner-Asian steppe areas or in the Mediterranean area. The actual area of ​​the nature reserve is relatively small at 127  hectares .

The Große Sand lies between the Mainz districts of Gonsenheim and Mombach and extends as far as the Rheinauen, which begins in Mombach . Directly adjacent is the approximately 700 hectare Lenneberg Forest, the largest contiguous forest area in Rheinhessen . The Lennebergwald is also under nature protection and partly has the same flora and fauna .

The creation of the Great Sand

In the late Pleistocene , shortly before the end of the last ice age, drifting sand was blown into large dunes from the nearby Rhine valley in the area of ​​today's Great Sand in the short summer phases. As a result, the soil consisted almost exclusively of fine, white sand rich in lime, which could only store a small amount of water and nutrients, but was easy to warm up.

Towards the end of the Ice Age at the latest by 10,000 BC. The ice masses withdrew to the north. A treeless cold steppe emerged as a direct successor. With increasing warming in Central Europe, a steppe vegetation developed due to the immigration of plants from more southerly areas, which is still partly present today as a relic flora. A slight growth of pine trees can also be assumed. A reforestation of the area in the course of further warming displaced this steppe flora more and more, so that it could only survive in very few areas. In central Germany , this inland dune area with its typical sandy flora originally extended from Ingelheim via Mainz / Frankfurt to further south to Heidelberg . The shade-sensitive pine was also displaced: it could only survive on nutrient-poor sandy sites.

This leads to today's vegetation: the steppe plants in the Great Sand and the pine and oak forest in the Lennebergwald. For the common beech forest , which is common in Germany , the climate is too dry and the soil too poor in nutrients.

This was supported by the cultivation of the land by the people: sheep and goats preferred to eat deciduous trees in forest pastures , and hardwood was also preferred as firewood.

The great sand in the present

Information sign in English

The site has also been used for military purposes since 1798 until today. First by French troops during the First French Republic (1799–1804) and the First French Empire (1804–1814), later by Prussian and Austrian troops from the Federal Fortress of Mainz . Trees or larger bushes were repeatedly removed to give the artillery a clear field of fire.

The military use as a rifle and artillery training area by the troops of the federal fortress Mainz prevented a natural expansion of the neighboring Lenneberg Forest, as the area was kept free of trees. Later, the Wehrmacht and, after the Second World War, French and American troops also used the sand as a training ground. Even today, parts of the Mainz sand are training grounds for the US troops ( Training Area Mainz Gonsenheim (USAG Wiesbaden) ) within the framework of the NATO troop statute .

As part of the softening as a result of the Treaty of Versailles , larger parts of the sand were rededicated for planting orchards. In 1933, the development of the peripheral areas of the Mainzer Sand began. In 1939 a 33 hectare part of the sandy area was designated as a nature reserve. A decisive turning point was the construction of the federal motorway 643 in 1966, which cut the sand into two large parts. The original nature reserve is to the east of the motorway. In 1994 the nature reserve was expanded by 94 ha. The additional areas are the Mombacher Oberfeld and the areas that are still used by the military. As part of the further expansion of the A 643, the former Federal Minister of Transport Peter Ramsauer instructed planning for the expansion to 6 + 2 lanes in August 2013.

The flora of the Great Sand

Sand tornensis ( Onosma arenaria ssp. Arenaria )
The endangered spring Adonis flower (Adonis vernalis) in the Mainz sand

Due to the heat and drought, which is unusual for Germany, its own vegetation has been preserved, which leads to the nature reserve's importance throughout Germany. Here you can find rare steppe plants that otherwise only appear in the Hungarian Puszta and further east in the Eurasian steppes . Many of these plants are critically endangered and are on the Red List of Endangered Species .

Endangered or endangered plants in the Großer Sand Mainz nature reserve:

In addition to these mostly limestone species, there are also species with low base levels in the Mainz sand - varying in small areas - which together lead to a remarkable abundance of species.

The fauna of the Great Sand

Blue-winged Badlands Cricket ( Oedipoda caerulescens )

Replica of the Great Sand

In 1982, as part of expansion measures, a replica of the Great Sand was created in the botanical garden of Johannes Gutenberg University . In the botanical garden of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, which was redesigned in 2006/2007, the flora of the Großer Sand nature reserve was reproduced on a specially set up display area.

swell

  1. ↑ Ramsauer instructs planning for a six-lane expansion of the A 643 . Focus online. August 6, 2013. Retrieved August 10, 2013.
  2. ^ Herbert Frankenhäuser: Mainz in the Ice Age . In: Quarterly issues for culture, politics, economics, history . City of Mainz, 1999, ISBN 3-8053-2000-0 , p. 14 .

literature

  • Jürgen H. Jungbluth (Hrsg.): The Mainzer Sand: Contributions to the monograph of the nature reserve Mainzer Sand and its immediate surroundings. Mainz Natural Science Archive, Volume 25, Mainz 1987, ISSN  0542-1535 .
  • Dieter Korneck, Peter Pretscher: Plant communities of the nature reserve "Mainzer Sand" and problems of their conservation. In: Nature and Landscape. No. 7/8, 59, 1984. Verlag W. Kohlhammer, pp. 307-315, ISSN  0028-0615 .
  • Claudia Heß: Habitat selection and species composition of arthropod populations in urban areas using the example of the Rhine-Main agglomeration with special consideration of the Saltatoria. Dissertation at the Department of Biology at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz 2001, PDF version .

Web links

Commons : Big Sands  - Collection of pictures, videos, and audio files

Coordinates: 50 ° 0 ′ 55 ″  N , 8 ° 12 ′ 25 ″  E