Snail stone (rock)
| Snail stone | ||
|---|---|---|
 Snail stone |
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| height | 883 m | |
| location | Saxony | |
| Mountains | Western Ore Mountains | |
| Coordinates | 50 ° 24 '48 " N , 12 ° 27' 4" E | |
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| Type | rock | |
| rock | topazed eruptive breccia | |
| Age of the rock | Carbon | |
The Schneckenstein is a rock about 23 meters high near the Schneckenstein settlement in Saxony. It reaches an absolute height of 883 m above sea level. NN and lies in the forest area between Klingenthal , Muldenberg and Tannenbergsthal in the southeastern Vogtland at the transition to the Western Ore Mountains . The rock became known for its peculiar geological structure and the associated wealth of topaz .
history
The rock has been known since the 17th century, there are several assumptions about the origin of the name, today one can assume that it comes from its original shape. In 1727 Christian Kraut discovered the topaz on the snail stone. In many sources he is incorrectly referred to as a cloth maker. Between 1734 and 1800, the Königskrone colliery mined topase from the Schneckenstein, with around two thirds of the original rock being removed. In 1800 the rock was given to the Freiberg Mining Academy as a research object. The rock has been under protection as a natural monument since 1938 . The rock is a popular vantage point, but it is also always the target of “hobby miners” and looters. In GDR times, from 1973 onwards, the rock was fenced in and no longer accessible. After the reunification, the fence was dismantled and the rock made accessible to visitors again. However, it had to be fenced in again after a short time. Today the rock is guarded and can be entered at certain times of the day from within the fence.
Geology and geography
The snail stone is a quartz - topaz - brecciated rock in contact metamorphic Cambrian slates near the contact with the Eibenstock granite . The rock falls very steeply to the east like a tube. Its formation lies in the late phase of the Variscan mountain formation . As a result of the intrusion of the Eibenstock granite, the slates were initially overprinted with contact metamorphism and converted into quartz- tourmaline- slate . This was followed by an eruptive event in which the rock was brecciated. The regulated slate fragments indicate a "gentler" and less of an explosive event. Then there was an aging process in which the brecciated rock was cemented with quartz and topaz. After the depth , the topaz guide decreases in favor of tourmaline. Cassiterite and sulphides also occur in smaller quantities .
The neighboring Tannenberg tin ore mine examined the breccia body in the early 1960s as part of its tin exploration. At about 80 m below the surface of the day, the breccia body was traversed with a stretch and opened up horizontally by several crosscuts and boreholes. The body here had a kidney-shaped shape, as well as an average extent WNW-OSE of 110 m, and WSW-ONE of 35 m. On the surface, the breccia body, in contrast, has a more oval shape with similar dimensions. The breccia as well as the porphyry ascent chimney was proven by drilling to a depth of 450 m up to the granite contact. Their dimensions differed considerably from those on the surface and in the mining area. This type of debris breccia, along with two other smaller occurrences west of the rock, is unique in Europe. A comparable rock is only known from Mount Bischoff on Tasmania .
The classification of the Schneckenstein as a mountain is not entirely unproblematic. Although it is indicated as a mountain on many maps and literary works, this is mainly due to its popularity and its tourist importance. Geomorphologically, the rock has no meaning and stands out from its surroundings, a slope of the Kiel (942 m) gently sloping to the north, solely because of its geologically harder structure .
Many topaz finds from the Schneckenstein can be seen today in the topaz room of the Mineral Center in Schneckenstein .
literature
- Ludwig Baumann, Ewald Kuschka, Thomas Seifert: Deposits of the Ore Mountains. Enke, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-13-118281-4 .
- Reinhart Heppner , Jörg Brückner , Helmut Schmidt: Saxon-Bohemian panoramic mountains of the western Ore Mountains in words and pictures with tourist information , Horb am Neckar 2001, pp. 20-21
- Johann Gottlieb Kern: From the snail stones or the Saxon topaz rock . Dresden 1792 ( digitized version )
- Bernd Lahl : Royal topazes on the snail stone: gemstones from the Vogtland . Chemnitzer Verlag, Chemnitz August 2012, ISBN 978-3937025858
