Front Odenwald

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Front Odenwald
Vorderer Odenwald as the westernmost part of unit 14 Odenwald, Spessart and Südrhön

Vorderer Odenwald as the westernmost part of unit 14
Odenwald, Spessart and Südrhön

View from Hochheim am Main to the southeast over the Upper Rhine Plain to the Vorderen Odenwald. The prominent elevation in the right third of the image is the Melibokus 38 km away. To the right of the Melibokus, the mountain road continues south.

View from Hochheim am Main to the southeast over the Upper Rhine Plain to the Vorderen Odenwald. The prominent elevation in the right third of the image is the Melibokus 38 km away. To the right of the Melibokus, the mountain road continues south.

Highest peak Neunkircher Höhe ( 605  m above sea  level )
location Hesse , Baden-Wuerttemberg
part of Odenwaldes
Classification according to Handbook of the natural spatial structure of Germany
Coordinates 49 ° 43 '  N , 8 ° 46'  E Coordinates: 49 ° 43 '  N , 8 ° 46'  E
Type Layer level landscape
rock crystalline basement
surface 591.6 km²
particularities Geo-Naturpark Bergstrasse-Odenwald
p5
Small mountain range on the Daumberg near Trösel
Siegfriedsquelle in the Felsenmeer near Reichenbach
View over Schnorrenbach into the Weschnitzsenke
Quarry above Weinheim an der Bergstrasse

The Vordere Odenwald , also known as the Crystalline Odenwald , is 591.6 km², next to the sandstone Odenwald, the smaller of the two main natural units of the Odenwald and is mainly located in the state of Hesse . A small part in the south extends over the state border to Baden-Württemberg .

geography

Geographical location

The western border of the Vorderen Odenwald on the Bergstrasse rises as a low mountain range in a very straight line and impressively as a north-eastern pillar up to 400 meters above the Upper Rhine Plain . The lower slope and the foot of the slope on the mountain road are geologically part of the Odenwald, but are considered to be an independent natural spatial main unit, which is characterized by a particularly mild climate and corresponding native vegetation, very different from that of the Odenwald. The Bergstrasse is, so to speak, the baseline of the Vorderen Odenwald, on which it reaches its northernmost point in the inner city area of Darmstadt and the southern edge beyond the Kanzelbach near Schriesheim and Wilhelmsfeld , extending east to Heiligkreuzsteinach . The western border of the Vorderen Odenwald measures 47.5 kilometers from north to south.

The northeast border of the Vorderen Odenwald to the Reinheimer Hügelland is 27 kilometers as the crow flies, but is not as straight as that to the Bergstrasse. The border of the natural area is mostly on the northern edge of the woodland and includes the places Traisa , Ober-Ramstadt , Rohrbach , Rodau , Lichtenberg , Niedernhausen , Bierbach , Nieder-Kainsbach , Wallbach , Höllerbach , Hassenroth , Hummetroth and Ober- Kinzig as a border town.

The southeast border opposite the sandstone Odenwald or Hinteren Odenwald from Ober-Kinzig to Heiligkreuzsteinach is 34 kilometers as the crow flies. It includes the following places on the border line: Birkert , Böllstein , Hembach , Ober-Kainsbach , Kirch-Beerfurth , Erzbach , Ober-Easter , Weschnitz , Hammelbach , Litzelbach , Ober-Scharbach , Tromm , Kocherbach , Hartenrod , Wald-Michelbach , Siedelsbrunn , Ober-Abtsteinach , Unter-Abtsteinach , Hilsenhain and Lampenhain .

Natural structure

The Vordere Odenwald as main unit 145 with an area of ​​591.6 km² is subdivided within the main unit group 14 Odenwald, Spessart and Südrhön as follows into sub-units, which are numbered with decimal places:

Description of the natural spatial structure

The part of the Vorderen Odenwald that protrudes furthest towards the Rhine plain, the Melibokus-Odenwald in the northwest, is also considered to be its core and is the only sub-unit that is subdivided in many ways. The other sub-units lie between it and the sandstone Odenwald . First of all, the Lichtenberger Heights, the Neunkircher-Höh-Odenwald, the Krehberg-Odenwald and the Juhöhe-Odenwald form a belt around it from north to south. At the Neunkircher Höhe, the Vordere Odenwald reaches its highest point at 605 meters. It is also the second highest mountain in the Odenwald. The Vordere Odenwald experiences a distinctive dichotomy by the broad-bottomed and trough-shaped depression of the Gersprenz and Weschnitz valleys following the mountain floes described . This valley line is followed by the series of sub-units Böllstein-Odenwald, Tromm-Odenwald and, in the far south, Eichelberg-Odenwald.

The difference to the adjoining sandstone Odenwald can be seen in a much more detailed design of the mountain relief with sometimes rapidly changing types of rock and location conditions compared to the very calm and generous lines of the part of the low mountain range covered by red sandstone .

Waters

The abundance of water in the Vorderen Odenwald is due not least to the relatively high annual rainfall, which shows an increasing trend towards the southeast (Neunkirchen 900 mm, Lindenfels 1,000 mm and Tromm 1,100 mm per year), and this has contributed to the small-scale forms of erosion in the mountains. In contrast to the Hinteren Odenwald, where the main valleys are cut in a north-south direction, the water network in large parts of the Vorderen Odenwald was tapped from the western lowlands of the Upper Rhine. Regardless of the towering mountain edge in the Juhöh- and Eichelberg-Odenwald, the Weschnitz has cut a two-kilometer-long notch valley from Birkenau to Weinheim , which has a considerable gradient of around 50 meters, between the two mountain floes . Already in the upper reaches it cuts in an east-west direction in a narrow valley through the Tromm-Odenwald. In the north, the Modau breaks through the edge of the rock near Darmstadt-Eberstadt . Another well-known body of water is the Lauter , which, like the Modau coming from the Neunkircher Höhe, leaves its narrow valley near Bensheim and enters the plain. Only in the east do the Gersprenz and Steinach maintain the direction of flow to the north to the Main and south to the Neckar.

geology

As the name Crystalline Odenwald suggests, the Vordere Odenwald is characterized by the crystalline basement exposed by all outer layers , which has a large variety of rocks , metamorphic gneiss , diorite and granite as well as plutonic gabbro or volcanic rhyolite (quartz porphyry) and basalt .

A large area in the triangle between Heppenheim, Weinheim and Reichelsheim, the Weschnitzsenke and the mountain floes to the west of it, are shaped by the Weschnitzpluton . It essentially consists of granodiorites . The area of ​​the drum granite connects to the southeast . It essentially consists of biotite granites .

Rock is mined in quarries in numerous places . In some places, chemical weathering has led to rock heaps sliding down into the valley , such as the Felsenmeer near Lautertal .

vegetation

About a third of the total area is covered by forests. Mixed deciduous forests with a special focus on beech stands are characteristic of the Vorderen Odenwald . There are lime-beech forests on loess , oak-hornbeam forests on clay and, from an altitude of about 350 meters, mountain beech forests. The beech stocks of Seidenbuch am Krehberg are particularly well-known . The Gersprenz and Weschnitzsenke, on the other hand, is largely unforested and is used for agriculture on deep loamy soils. The sweet chestnut grows on the sun-exposed slopes on the waste to Bergstrasse.

colonization

The settlement and clearing of the Vorderen Odenwald began much earlier than in the sandstone Odenwald, not least because of the fertile soils, probably already at the time of the Merovingians . The Lorsch Monastery , which was very wealthy here, played a special role . Zotzenbach is considered the oldest forest hoof village in Germany. The fertile Gersprenz and Weschnitzsenke with the numerous open side valleys, where a dense chain of village settlements emerged, were initially preferred for the construction of villages. But also the upper reaches of the brooks with meadows and flat arable land were in great demand. The Vordere Odenwald was not the ideal landscape for the founding of cities. Even if it is surrounded by a number of towns, especially on Bergstrasse, inside there is only the small town of Lindenfels .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Emil Meynen , Josef Schmithüsen : Handbook of the natural spatial structure of Germany . Federal Institute for Regional Studies, Remagen / Bad Godesberg 1953–1962 (9 deliveries in 8 books, updated map 1: 1,000,000 with main units 1960).
  2. ↑ Various authors: Geographische Landesaufnahme: The natural spatial units in single sheets 1: 200,000 . Federal Institute for Regional Studies, Bad Godesberg 1952–1994. → Online maps of the natural space units ; here: sheet 151 Darmstadt (Otto Klausing 1967; 61 p.)
  3. ↑ Map and legend of the natural areas of Hesse (online copy of Die Naturraum Hessens , Otto Klausing 1988) in the Hessen Environmental Atlas of the Hessian State Office for Environment and Geology

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