Schomet nature reserve
The Schomet nature reserve is one of the 37 nature reserves in Stolberg in the Aachen city region, with an area of around 8 hectares on the southern outskirts of Breinig . The nature reserve is located at an altitude of 288 m above sea level.
geology
In the Schomet area, as in the neighboring Schlangenberg and Bärenstein nature reserves , there is also a former quarry on a limestone ridge. This extends from Stolberg to Belgium .
The bluestone broken in the quarry , also known as "Aachen bluestone", is a product of lower carbon . It was formed from sediments about 290 million years ago and, as can be seen in some places in the quarry, it was folded over geological periods. Blaustein is typical for the region between Breinig and Walheim .
Due to its homogeneity , bluestone is very suitable for stone carving and was mostly used for building houses. Its attractiveness results from the fact that freshly hewn bluestone has a dark gray color, but it brightens considerably over time due to weathering processes . Houses in the old town area of Breinig, Breinigerberg and into Belgium clearly show this.
history
The first written mention of limestone mining in the Schomet dates back to 1413. The bluestone extracted here was already being used at that time for building houses, for building roads, but also as a raw material for lime burning . With the construction of the Kornelimünster monastery there was a reorganization of the use u. a. of available mineral resources. This is evidenced by documents about “the Stockum fiefdom” from 1502 and the “Hof auf den Heiden” from 1489. The area came into the hands of the church. At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, they sold the area. It became the property of the state. In search of additional sources of income, he sold the area so that private entrepreneurs bought it. They built a total of 4 stone quarries in the Schomet . Even today there are still broken stone blocks in the quarry, giving the impression of waiting to be picked up.
During the mining it became clear that the rock is very rich in fossils , with brachiopods in particular , fossilized armpods being found in large numbers.
A quarry, the Beritzekull , has been backfilled over time and is no longer recognizable. After mining was abandoned, the remaining pits were partially filled with groundwater. A renaturation did not take place. However, nature gradually reclaimed the area.
In 1985 the Schomet was placed under nature protection.
Flora and fauna
Originally there was a beech forest in the area of Schomet . This was cleared when the bluestone was extracted.
Two years after the Schomet was declared a nature reserve, an initial study in 1987 identified more than 160 different plant species on its area.
In the valley area of the former quarries, there is a wet biotope with the typical vegetation. A typical plant that can be found in the damp quarry areas is the meadowsweet ( Filipendula ), which grows here as a high perennial and belongs to the rose family ( Rosaceae ).
Another typical feature is spring geophyte vegetation that grows below the hornbeam forest that is now there . The wood anemone is one of the characteristic plants . After the leaves of the trees begin to grow, the flowering of the spring geophytes ends, which is triggered by the reduced incidence of light and reduced photosynthesis .
In some areas of the nature reserve there is orchid-beech forest vegetation. Typical representatives are the orchid ( Orchis morio ), the bird's nest root ( Neottia nidus-avis ) or the fly's ragwort ( Ophrys insectifera ).
Due to the plants growing here, there is a habitat for butterflies and amphibians in the Schomet .
literature
- The district administrator of the Aachen district (ed.): Aachen district landscape plan: Stolberg / Roetgen . February 28, 2005.
- District government Cologne (Ed.): Nature reserves in the administrative district of Cologne . August 31, 2004 ( brk.nrw.de [PDF; 800 kB ; accessed on May 4, 2007]).
Web links
- Nature reserve “Schomet” (ACK-012) in the specialist information system of the State Office for Nature, Environment and Consumer Protection in North Rhine-Westphalia
Coordinates: 50 ° 43 ′ 26 ″ N , 6 ° 13 ′ 16 ″ E