Meteor Crater Museum
The meteor crater museum in the Sontheim district of Steinheim am Albuch is a natural history museum for the meteorite crater Steinheimer Becken . It is one of the few museums in the world dedicated to meteorite craters. Since 2005, the museum has also been one of 26 information points in the Swabian Alb Geopark .
Exhibits and presentation
Directly after the entrance to the exhibition there is a small film projection room in which an approx. 20-minute documentary film about the Steinheim basin and its history is shown. A diorama with life-size replicas of extinct animals conveys the image of a bank landscape on the crater lake as it could have looked in the first million years after the impact. In addition, the museum essentially consists of two exhibition rooms .
The first room is dedicated to geology . Information is provided about the meteorite impact around 15 million years ago, the geological history of the crater to this day and the history of its exploration. Exhibition exhibits, photos and labeled display boards are presented.
The second room shows the results of the paleontological research of the Steinheim Basin. Fossils found in the basin are exhibited , from the smallest freshwater snails to the remains of rhino and elephant species that were living at the time. The exhibits are supplemented by painted scenes of life in the crater or on the edge of the crater lake.
The museum also has a preparation room where visitors can prepare the fossils they found in the basin under expert guidance.
The Meteocrat Museum is also the starting point for a geological nature trail through the Steinheim Basin, which brings visitors closer to the special features of the impact crater at various stations.
photos
Showroom
Diorama with scene at the crater lake
literature
- Johannes Baier: Geological features in the Albuch. In: fossils . Special volume Geopark Swabian Alb, 2015, 47–51.
- Johannes Baier: The geological nature trail in the Steinheim basin - a cosmic search for traces. In: fossils . 30 (4), 2013, 228-232.
- Johannes Baier and Volker J. Sach (2018): Shatter-Cones from the impact craters Nördlinger Ries and Steinheimer Becken . In: Fossilien , 35 (2), 2018, 228–232.
- Johannes Baier and Armin Scherzinger: The new geological educational trail in the Steinheim impact crater . In: Annual reports and communications from the Upper Rhine Geological Association . 92, 9-24, 2010.
See also
Web links
Coordinates: 48 ° 40 ′ 43.3 " N , 10 ° 4 ′ 13.8" E