Eichenberg – Gotha – Saalfelder fault zone
The Eichenberg – Gotha – Saalfelder fault zone is a geological fault that stretches from Eichenberg in northeast Hesse about 130 km southeast via Gotha to Saalfeld through Thuringia . Its north-western section is also referred to as the (geological structural space ) Eichenberg – Gothaer Graben .
Only in the northwestern part, which leads from the Leinegraben to the western edge of the Hainich , does the fault mainly emerge as a depression. In the central part, which runs through the south-western edge of the Thuringian Basin , it is characterized by distinctive mountain ranges (e.g. Drei Gleichen ), further to the south-east it finally creates a rugged edge of the Ohrdrufer Platte to the southern edge of the basin.
Emergence
The Eichenberg – Gotha – Saalfeld fault formed in the course of the Saxon clod tectonics about 150 million years ago.
course
The Eichenberg – Gotha – Saalfelder fault zone runs in Hercynian direction from northwest to southeast parallel to the ridge of the Thuringian Forest. It manifests itself in sections in highly different surface forms.
Leinegraben to Hainich
On its north-western 40 kilometers, the Eichenberg-Gotha-Saalfeld fault zone is characterized primarily by lowering landscapes, to the sheet Kassel of the Handbook of natural physical Germany's own natural areas are reported.
Fretteröder Keupersenke
The disturbance begins at the Leinegraben near the town of Eichenberg in Northern Hesse . Immediately to the east of Bornhagen , the Keuper basin of the Eichenberg-Hohenganderner slopes and Keuperhügel narrows to the Fretteröder Keupersenke , a Hercynian high trough that crosses the watershed between Leine and Werra between Gerbershausen and Fretterode ( Eichsfeld district ) . These high-depression is flanked by the south-west at the Junker hill 510.7 m reaching ridge height mountain . To the southwest of Fretterodes, the Mulde follows a small ridge made of shell limestone, parallel to the Höheberg, to the northeast, with the 360 m high Hasenwinkel and the nature reserve of the same name.
Weidenbach-Mackenröder depression
At Vatterode , the trough reaches the upper reaches of the Walse and in the further section of the fault zone becomes the Weidenbach-Mackenröder depression into the basin-like discharge trough of the Oberwalse fan, whereby the geological structure becomes more complex overall. Between the eponymous towns of Mackenrode and the southern district of Weidenbach , a gently rising shell limestone ridge from Brandberg (395 m) and Frauenberg (411 m) accompanies the Gobert, which adjoins it to the south and is up to 569 m high .
Course in the Rosoppe-Frieda-Bucht
East of the Frauenberg, the fault zone between the Rachelsberg (523 m) of the northern Gobert (dolomite rock on Schlittstein ) and the Höheberg (with 521 m the highest mountain in the Kalteneberer step edge area and the (western) upper area generally) reaches the upper reaches of the Rode near Schwobfeld and thus the Western part of the fan of the Frieda , which occupies the natural area Rosoppe-Frieda-Bucht .
To the south-east of the towns of Armaments and Wiesenfeld , the Rode, on the left, is blocked by the Misseröder limestone ridge with the towns of Lehna and Misserode , reaching north-east to close to the last-mentioned Höheberg and 424 m high at the Siebertsburg, the southern part of the bay from the gently undulating northern part. To the northeast, this small, geologically very complex range of hills, due to various parallel faults, is flanked by the Krombach between Krombach and Ershausen , to the east it meets the Rosoppe , whose south direction is also followed by the lower reaches of its receiving stream Frieda.
The Pfaffenschwender Kuppe ( 493 m , east Gobert) and the Schloßberg Greifenstein ( 443 m ) are passed southwest of the Rode course .
Upper Friedatal area
Also further south-east, in the Upper Friedatal area, the meanwhile various parallel faults are followed by a system of two depressions, each with a (moderate) ridge in the middle:
At Geismar , the Rode valley merges with the middle Frieda (seen upstream), which is accompanied to the northeast by the ridge of the Rollsberg (407 m). The latter goes north into the nearby Eichsfelder Westerwald , at the Schimberg , 457 m high , from which it is only separated by the small stream from Wilbich along with an extending country road.
To the left or southwest of Frieda, the Hülfensberg ( 448 m ) is passed to the northeast, which finally joins the striking Wanfrieder Werra heights with Keudelskuppe ( 485 m ), Plesse ( 480 m ), Konstein ( 455 m ) and Auf der Delle ( 464 m , Karnberg - Back).
Further to the south-east, after passing the Keudelskuppe or immediately after reaching the Unstrut-Hainich district west of Lengenfeld, the Rosebach follows the upstream to Hildebrandshausen , while the north-east parallel sub- basin follows the Frieda and finally the Faulunger Bach after Faulungen , until it finally runs out. Between the two valleys there is a ridge that descends steeply towards them, rising only very gently from the Dünberg (445 m) east of Hildebrandhausen over the Pfaffenkopf (451 m) to the interface with the Hainich (up to 494 m) north-east of Diedorf at around 470 m and without any noteworthy increases Depression or threshold merges into the latter ridge.
The Lower Werrabergland , which is rich in relics, ends near Diedorf and is replaced by the bulky Muschelkalk plateaus of the main unit Ringgau – Hainich – Obereichsfeld – Dün – Hainleite .
Course on the southwest edge of the Hainich
To the northwest of Heyerode , the structure of the fault zone is considerably simplified. The fault area follows, as a simple depression or high trough, as a natural area Grundbachtal, the valley of the Grundbach in the Wartburg district to Hallungen and Nazza and separates the Hainich in the east from the geologically similar Falkener Platte (at Dörnerberg south of Diedorfs 478 m) in the west.
To the southeast of Nazza, the fault zone then touches the southwest edge of the actual Hainich and gently separates foothills such as the Wernershäuser Höhe (358 m), the Harsberg (410 m), the Mittelberg (413 m) and the Lohberg (425 m) from the core plateau. The headwaters of the Ihlefelder Bach and the Lauterbach run directly to the fault until they bend almost vertically away from the ridge.
Thuringian Basin
The part of the fault that ran out in Hainich is extended over a section that comes from Treffurt and, after a slight curve clockwise, on the southwest slope of the Hainich, past the headwaters of Lauterbach (to the northwest to the Werra ) and Bieberbach (opposite, to Southeast to the Nesse ), the fall of the shell limestone ridge to the Keuper basin. This is followed by another section of the fault, which is offset slightly to the northeast, but follows the old direction.
In contrast to the submontane Eichsfeld, where the disturbance manifested itself primarily in the formation of ditches and hollows, in the southwest of the Thuringian Basin it is responsible for the development of distinctive mountain ranges that were created by reversing the relief . Together these mountain ranges form the eastern edge of the natural spatial main unit of West Thuringian mountain and hill country and frame a south-western side basin of the popular Thuringian basin, whose core basin is immediately northeast.
The Krahnberg ( 431 m ) to the northwest and the seamounts (up to 409 m ) to the southeast of Gotha ( district of Gotha ) and the two mountain ranges of the Drei Gleichen to the northwest of Arnstadt , on the border of the district of Gotha with the Ilm district, are striking .
Ilm-Saale- and Ohrdrufer plate
The natural spatial main unit of the Ilm-Saale- and Ohrdrufer Platte forms a distinctive shell limestone fringe with deeply incised river valleys from Gera , Ilm and Saale around the eastern Thuringian Forest and the Thuringian Slate Mountains , which, however, mostly slopes very gently at the interface with the Thuringian Basin. Due to the disturbance, the northeast slope of the protrusion of the Ohrdrufer Platte in the narrower sense (with the Gossel plateau ) immediately southeast of the Drei Gleichen and the Reinsberg mountains south of Arnstadt make an exception, which creates a rugged trailing edge. In the further course, the fault forms the seam of the southeast wing of the Reinsberge and their line of the following hills to the actual Ilm-Saale-Platte in the northeast. In doing so, she partially models a very striking transition to the red sandstone of the Paulinzella foreland of the Thuringian Forest, which adjoins immediately to the southwest. In particular, the Singener Berg in the Stadtilm area ( 583 m ), which lies immediately beyond the southwesternmost of several parallel fault lines, is shaped as a singularity and, apart from a minimal seam in the northeast, is surrounded by shell limestone everywhere. It is separated from the surrounding hills by a concentric trench, which sinks to 400 m towards the core plate.
On the outskirts of the Saalfeld-Rudolstadt district , at the Paulinzella monastery , the disturbance runs out and only reappears in the northwestern urban area of Saalfeld / Saale , where it forms the northeastern edge of the Thuringian slate mountains . It is assumed that the disturbance continues southeast of Saalfeld in the Variscan basement to Hirschberg on the Thuringian- Bavarian border.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Interactive map and legend on the geological structure of Hesse in the Hesse Environmental Atlas of the Hessian State Office for Environment and Geology
- ↑ a b c d e f Hans-Jürgen Klink: Geographical land survey: The natural spatial units on sheet 112 Kassel - Federal Institute for Regional Studies, Bad Godesberg 1969 → online map
- ↑ a b c d e Geological map of Hesse (GÜK 300) , Hessian State Office for Environment and Geology (PDF; 28 MB)
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Hydrogeological map of Thuringia from the Thuringian State Institute for Environment and Geology (PDF; 4.37 MB) ( Even finer maps are available for each district .)
- ↑ It should be mentioned that, according to the original structure, especially according to the Kassel sheet, some of the landscapes that had passed through until now also belonged to Ringgau – Hainich – Obereichsfeld – Dün – Hainleite - see the articles for the main units!
- ^ A b E. Meynen and J. Schmithüsen : Handbook of the natural spatial structure of Germany (6th delivery 1959) - Federal Institute for Regional Studies, Remagen / Bad Godesberg 1953–1962 (9 deliveries in 8 books, updated map 1: 1,000,000 with main units 1960)
- ↑ a b Map services of the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation ( information )
literature
- Gerhard Krähahn, Erhard Rosenkranz, Ingrid Hönsch (editor): Thuringian Forest and northern foreland. Small excursion guide . VEB Herrmann Haack, Gotha 1989, ISBN 3-7301-0643-0
- Gerd Seidel (editor): Geology of Thuringia. E. Schweizbartsche Verlagbuchhandlung, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 978-3-510-65205-1
- Alois Schaefer: Morphology and the orogenetic mechanism of the Eichsfeld Keupergraben, special edition Mecke-Verlag Duderstadt 1925
- K. Fahlbusch: The Saalfeld – Gotha – Eichenberger fault zone in the Arnstadt area. Contributions to the tectonics of the Thuringian Basin. Treatises of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin. Math and general science class. Berlin 1953, 3, pages 63-94
Web links
- Keyword Eichenberg-Saalfelder fault zone (p. 288) at regionalgeologie-ost.de (PDF, 12.3 MB)