Pauliberg

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Pauliberg
The Pauliberg from the Schwarzenbach museum tower

The Pauliberg from the Schwarzenbach museum tower

height 761  m above sea level A.
location Burgenland ( Austria )
Dominance 3.47 km →  Sperkerriegel
Notch height 106 m ↓  summer houses
Coordinates 47 ° 35 '5 "  N , 16 ° 20' 21"  E Coordinates: 47 ° 35 '5 "  N , 16 ° 20' 21"  E
Pauliberg (Burgenland)
Pauliberg
Type Extinct volcano
rock Basalt (i.w. P.)
Age of the rock Miocene
Basalt bomb from Pauliberg in the museum park in Mödling

The Pauliberg ( Hungarian : Pál-hegy ) is a mountain of volcanic origin. It is located in central Burgenland - in the transition area between the Eastern Alps and the Pannonian Plain - in the Oberpullendorf district , roughly halfway between the towns of Kobersdorf and Landsee (near Sankt Martin ). From its summit region there is an impressive view in all directions.

The hard rock of the Pauliberges is basaltic (in the broader sense) and geologically relatively young. It is mined in a large quarry on the northern edge of the summit plateau. Around 60 different minerals had been identified there by 2009.

The mountain is located in the middle of the Landseer Berge nature reserve , not far from the Landsee castle ruins . This largest defensive system in Central Europe was built in the 12th century and served as an arsenal and protective fortress for the population during the Turkish wars, but fell into disrepair after 1710. Today, the entire area is being revitalized for tourism through open-air events and nature trails .

geology

The Pauliberg is isolated from and north of the volcanic area of ​​the Styrian Basin (Styrian Basin Volcanic Field, SBVF). Its rock has been dated radiometrically ( potassium-argon method ) to an age of around 11 million years, that is, it comes from the late Miocene . The cause of volcanism is the expansion of the earth's crust in the area of ​​today's Pannonian Basin and its satellite basins ( Styrian Basin and Vienna Basin ), which in turn was a result of the mountain formation processes in the Alpine-Carpathian region . Due to the expansion of the crust, relatively hot, extremely tough rock of the upper mantle rose under the Pannonian Basin (“passive upwelling”). In the process, it necessarily experienced a pressure relief, partially melted , and these melts rose, following the density and pressure gradient, to the surface of the earth.

The exact petrographic names for the rock of the Pauliberg are alkali basalt and basanite , whereby the basanite permeates the alkali basalt like a vein . Both are so-called "primitive" lava stones, as their composition is still very similar to the mantle rock from which they melted, that is, they have only undergone a very slight differentiation after melting . A special feature is the high proportion of titanium (IV) oxide (TiO 2 ) in the rock, the highest among all late Miocene and younger volcanic structures in the Pannonian Basin.

On the Pauliberg, the magma broke through the so-called exchange unit , a suite of different crystalline stones . From the fact that the basalts lie directly on the alternating crystalline, it can be concluded that the region in the Miocene, similar to today, must have been a high area, a threshold. This geological situation can only be found in a single other volcanic structure on the western edge of the Pannonian Basin ( Oberpullendorf ). The alternating rocks occurring around Landsee are in the eastern part of the "Wiesmather Window". The Pauliberg and its surroundings (Landseer Bucht) were thoroughly geologically investigated in the first half of the last century.

A cave, the "four-hole cave", has arisen in a lava tongue. It is the only secondary basalt cave in Burgenland.

Web links

Commons : Pauliberg  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Regional geological overview. Web presence of the Basaltwerk Pauliberg, accessed on May 25, 2017
  2. ^ A b c Shehata Ali, Theodoros Ntaflos: Alkali basalts from Burgenland, Austria: Petrological constraints on the origin of the westernmost magmatism in the Carpathian – Pannonian Region. Lithographs. Vol. 121, No. 1–4, 2011, pp. 176–188, doi: 10.1016 / j.lithos.2010.11.001 (alternative full text access : ResearchGate )
  3. ^ Friedrich Kümel: volcanism and tectonics of the Landseer Bucht in Burgenland. Yearbook of the Federal Geological Institute. Vol. 86, 1936, pp. 203-235 ( PDF )