Big water stone

The Wassersteintor natural monument at the Großer Wasserstein

The Great Wasserstein is a rock group of around 25 hectares northeast of Kröttenhof , a district of the Upper Franconian town of Betzenstein in Bavaria.

location

The rugged area lies in the Franconian Switzerland-Veldenstein Forest Nature Park and is about 1.4 km northwest of Betzenstein.

description

The dolomite massif is divided into two large rock groups made of reef dolomite from the upper Kimmeridgium . Its size is about 250 meters in length and 100 meters in width with a height of up to twenty meters. The Great Wasserstein is about 520 m above sea level. NN . The rocks are designated by the Bavarian State Office for the Environment as geotope 472R144 and a natural monument .

Particularly worth seeing is the Wassersteintor, a 12 meter deep rock gate (natural bridge) that is 2.50 to 7.50 meters wide and up to six meters high. This passage cave was probably a refuge for Stone Age hunters in prehistoric times , which has been proven by finds. The cave with finds from the Mesolithic , the Neolithic , the late Hallstatt , the Early La Tène and the Middle Ages is designated as a ground monument (D-4-6334-0016). The through cave is registered in the cave cadastre Fränkische Alb (HFA) as D 33.

A little north of this cave is another smaller cave system with an overhang about ten meters high . There are stairs to get to the Wasserstein (HFA no. D 250). This Abri was u. a. opened up by Markus Bock with three extremely difficult climbing routes. To the east of this is the water stone grotto (HFA no. D 250a), an approximately 15 meter long rock overhang, which is broken up by a few rock pillars.

One of the smallest European mammals, the Ice Age totem shrew ( Sorex minutissimus ) was found near this overhang . The fossil remains of the mouse are exhibited in the Palaeontological State Collection in Munich.

South of the rock group is another karst cave , the Buchner cave (HFA no. D 128).

History of origin

In the White Jura about 161 to 150 million years ago, all of southern Germany lay in the area of a shallow sea. During this time, due to the constant subsidence of the earth's crust, massive rock sequences were deposited on the sea floor. The Jura sediments form the largest part of the rocks that occur on the Franconian Jura and are also the basic material of the large water stone.

The sea retreated due to uplifts of the European continental plate towards the end of the Upper Jurassic and larger areas became mainland at the beginning of the following Cretaceous period. During this time there was a tropical climate and intensive weathering of the limestone and dolomite rocks that had previously formed. This karstification created the underground cavities such as the Buchner cave, the passage cave of the water stone gate, the water stone cave labyrinth and the water stone grotto.

In the Tertiary , regional uplift resulted in a renewed sea decline and partial exposure of the Jura landscape.

A sweeping overhang, a so-called balmen , in the northern part of the Wasserstein has also been preserved.