Middle Ore Mountains

Map of the natural areas in the Ore Mountains

As a central (-western) part of the Ore Mountains, the Middle Ore Mountains or Middle Ore Mountains are a natural area in Saxony and part of the Saxon Uplands and Uplands . It represents the eastern part of the former main units Lower Western Ore Mountains (423) and Upper Western Ore Mountains (421) and is crossed to the east by the (still associated) valley of the Flöha of the Eastern Ore Mountains , to the west by the (no longer included) valley of the Black Water or , after its mouth, by which the Zwickauer Mulde separated from the Western Ore Mountains.

The upper part of the Mittelerzgebirge belongs to the Erzgebirge / Vogtland Nature Park .

geography

The Middle Ore Mountains are characterized by ridge plateaus that become wider and wider towards the east. In the west, the Fichtelberg-Keilberg massif sits on top of the plateau by more than 200 m. The northern capping of the mountains reaches its greatest extent with 45 km width.

Gneisses make up a high proportion of the geological subsoil. Local peculiarities are ceiling remnants of the basalt volcanism of the Tertiary, such as can be found in the Bärenstein .

Compared to the Western Ore Mountains , the amount of precipitation is lower, but there are strong small-scale differentiations due to local leeward and windward areas . The comb plateaus are in certain areas vermoort , the largest bog area is 124 hectares, the " Mothäuser Heide ".

To the north, the flat undulating Erzgebirge basin connects with the city of Chemnitz , while the mountains continue to the south beyond the border with the Czech Republic . The state border largely follows the ridge of the mountains. The Fichtelberg , ( 1215 m above sea level ) north of Oberwiesenthal , is the highest mountain in Saxony. The Keilberg (Czech. Klínovec , 1244 m above sea level ), about 3.8 km south of the Fichtelberg on the Czech side, is the highest mountain in the Ore Mountains.