Taunus quartzite

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Cut Taunus quartzite in a sloppy quarry near Rosbach vor der Höhe at the eastern end of the Hochtaunus .

The Taunus quartzite is a marine-sedimentary rock unit of the Devonian in the southern Rhenish Slate Mountains .

Geographical and stratigraphic position

Geological map of the Taunus . (17) marks the outcrop of the Siegen step (bottom left to middle right), within which the Taunus quartzite lies

The outcrop of the Taunus quartzite, which is 600 m thick on average, stretches near the southern edge of the Rhenish Slate Mountains over almost 200 km in a northeast-southwest direction from the eponymous Taunus to the right of the Rhine ( Hesse ) across the Hunsrück to the left of the Rhine ( Rhineland-Palatinate and the extreme north of the Saarland ) to the Moselle in the French department of the same name .

The Taunus quartzite is placed in the middle and upper section of the Siegen level of the central Lower Devonian ( Pragium ). It follows the clayey-sandy Hermeskeil layers of the lower Siegen level and is covered by clay slates from the Ems level (including Hunsrück slate ). Internally, the unit is divided into a lower and an upper Taunus quartzite.

features

The Taunusquartzite is a so-called rock quartzite or Ortho quartzite , that is, it does not is a metamorphic rock (quartzite in the strict sense or Metaquarzit), but a silicified (by very finely crystalline quartz cemented ) quartz sandstone . The rock, which is whitish, light gray or dark gray in the unweathered state, is usually layered in banks . Weathered surfaces can be brownish or reddish. The rock contains quartz grains (the quartz content in total can exceed 95%) mostly small amounts of feldspar grains and white mica flake.

Emergence

The Taunus quartzite emerged from sandy deposits that were deposited in the sea-covered Rheno-Hercynian Basin around 410 million years ago during the “Siegen period”. The Rheno-Hercynian Basin was a subsidence zone on the southern edge of the Ur- continent Laurussia , formed in the course of the Caledonian orogeny . The sandy source material of the Taunus quartzite was deposited in the shallow, moving water near the base of the fair-weather waves and relatively close to the coast, before the Hunsrück slate began to be deposited as a result of a gradual increase in water depth and distance from the coast at the end of the Siegen period. The Central German Crystalline Sill, which delimited the Rheno-Hercynian Basin to the southeast, is considered as the area of ​​origin (delivery area) of the sands . Over the course of millions of years, these sands were compacted and converted into rock quartzite through cementation with quartz. In addition, they experienced a folding in the course of the Variscan orogeny .

Fossil content

Fossils can only be found sporadically, predominantly marine invertebrates ( snails , tentaculites , arm pods ) and "primitive" fish as well as invertebrate trace fossils , including Rosselia socialis , which is interpreted as the living tube of a polychaete and whose type is local to the Rossel near Rüdesheim.

geomorphology

Elisabethenstein.jpg
Mannfelsen-ringwall-otzenhausen.jpg


Left: The Elisabethenstein near Bad Homburg in the eastern Taunus
Right: The Mannfelsen north of Otzenhausen in the Hunsrück.

Because of its resistance to weathering , quartzite erodes more slowly than slate. The topography of the Taunus quartzite is therefore relatively conspicuous. Its course is followed by the high altitudes in the south of the Taunus ( Hoher Taunus ) and the Hunsrück ( Binger Wald , Soonwald , Lützelsoon , Idarwald and Hochwald). With the Großer Feldberg (around 880  m above sea  level ) and the Erbeskopf ( 816  m ), the highest mountains of the Taunus and the Hunsrück are at least partially * in the outcrop of the Taunus quartzites. While this outcrop in the Hochtaunus is part of an effective hydrological "cross bar", it is broken through in the Hunsrück by several tributaries of the Nahe ( Guldenbach , Simmerbach , Hahnenbach ). In numerous places the quartzite forms bare rock cliffs, such as on the gold mine near Oberursel (Hochtaunus) or in the form of the Mannfelsen near Otzenhausen in the southwest of the Hunsrück.

* The Great Feldberg is also made up of the quartzitic layers of the colorful slate (lower Lower Devonian, Gedinne stage).

use

Taunus quartzite in the ring wall of the early La Tène period (around 400 BC) on the Altkönig

Building material

Taunus quartzite is a typical building material in the region. It was mined in numerous quarries. The largest still in operation is the Köpperner quartzite plant in the eastern Taunus, which has existed since 1899 and whose approval will run until 2040. The Argenthal quartzite plant in the western Hunsrück is also extensive .

The gray stone at the Cohausen temple in Hofheim is a block made of Taunus quartzite, which was probably brought to its current location as a menhir .

Remains of the Emsbach Gorge Waldglashütte

Glass production

Quartz is the raw material for glass . Place names such as glassworks in the Hochtaunus still point to glassmakers from the High Middle Ages . The remains of the Waldglashütte Emsbachschlucht can be found on the narrow valley floor of the Emsbach (1 km steep descent from the Rotes Kreuz hiking car park at the Feldbergkastell ). The glassworks consisted of a main and four auxiliary furnaces on an area of ​​approx. 300 m 2 . Its existence is assigned to the time around 1450.

Single receipts

  1. ^ F. Langenstrassen: Neritic sedimentation of the Lower and Middle Devonian in the Rheinische Schiefergebirge East of the River Rhine. P. 43–76 in: H. Martin, FW Eder (Ed.): Intracontinental Fold Belts: Case Studies in the Variscan Belt of Europe and the Damara Belt of Namibia. Springer-Verlag, 1983, ISBN 978-3-642-69126-3 , pp. 57-59.
  2. ↑ Michaela Winkelmann: Palynostratigraphic investigations on the southern edge of the Rhenish Slate Mountains (southern Taunus, southern Hunsrück). Herbert Utz Verlag, 2000, p. 5.
  3. ↑ a b Georg Dahmer: Traces of life from the Taunus quartzite and the Siegen layers (Lower Devonian). In: Preussische Geologische Landesanstalt zu Berlin, Jahrbuch Vol. 57 (1936), 1937, pp. 523-539.
  4. ↑ Hans-Dirk Hahn: Facies of coarse-clastic rocks of the Lower Devonian (gray phyllite to Taunus quartzite) in the Taunus (Rhenish slate mountains). Marburg 1990.
  5. ↑ Michaela Winkelmann: Palynostratigraphic investigations on the southern edge of the Rhenish Slate Mountains (southern Taunus, southern Hunsrück). Herbert Utz Verlag, 2000, pp. 130-132.
  6. ↑ O. Rose: Petrifications in the Taunus quartzite of the Rhine Taunus. In: Yearbook of the Nassau Association for Natural History , 83, 1936, pp. 49–58.
  7. ↑ F. Kutscher: Fossil finds in the Taunus quartzite of the western Soonwald (Hunsrück). In: Notblatt des Hessisches Landesamt für Bodenforschung , 3, 1952, pp. 87-90.
  8. ↑ Hermann Schmidt: Fish remains from the Taunus quartzite. In: Palaeontologische Zeitschrift , 15, No. 4, 1933, pp. 228–245.
  9. ↑ M. Schlirf, M. Nara, A. Uchman: Invertebrate trace fossils from the Taunus quartzite (Siegen, Unterdevon) from the "Rossel" near Rüdesheim. In: Yearbooks of the Nassau Association for Natural History , 123, 2002, pp. 43–63.
  10. ↑ Taunus-Zeitung: Quarzitwerk: Neuer Lächter , March 21, 2016, accessed June 28, 2016.
  11. ↑ Taunus-Zeitung Usingen: Hiked to the top , accessed June 27, 2016.
  12. ↑ argenthaler quartzite : white quartzite from the Hunsrück , accessed on June 28, 2016.
  13. ^ History working group Glashütten Taunus: Glass in the Hochtaunus, overview . Retrieved June 28, 2016.
  14. ↑ Peter Steppuhn: Conservation - Reconstruction - Reproduction. On the problem of protecting and presenting an archaeological monument. In: Communications of the German Society for Archeology of the Middle Ages and Modern Times: Findings and Reconstruction. Vol. 22, 2010, S 211–220, doi: 10.11588 / dgamn.2010.1.17329 , urn : nbn: de: bsz: 16-dgamn-173296 (direct link to PDF)