Wurmberg granite
The Wurmberg granite is located on the edge of the Brocken massif , about 2.5 km north of Braunlage in Lower Saxony and 250 m from the Great Wurmberg cliff on the Wurmberg , the highest mountain in Lower Saxony. There was the quarry in which the pale red, fine to coarse-grained biotite granite was mined from the Upper Carboniferous .
Mineral inventory and geology
This granite contains 31% quartz , 42% alkali feldspar , 20% plagioclase , 7% biotite , as well as the accessories zircon , apatite , rutile , muscovite and other opaque minerals.
The granite plutons of the Harz, the Brocken, Ramberg and Oker plutons, emerged after the Harz mountain formation in the lower Rotliegend about 290 million years ago, in the Variscan orogeny . The Wurmberg granite is included in the Brocken granite complex, which is the largest at 165 km².
Quarry
The Wurmberg quarry was created around 1899. The stones from the granite quarry were loaded into lorries at the foot of the Wurmberg and transported on pull ropes on an embankment to the “Wurmberg” loading point on the Walkenried – Braunlage / Tanne narrow-gauge railway . The quarry was closed in the spring of 1974.
The Wurmberg quarry can already be recognized from Braunlage by the high wall of the quarry.
use
The Wurmberg granite is very weather-resistant, wear-resistant, polishable and stable against chemical aggressions. It was used as floor covering, paving stones, ashlar, stair and facade covering, window and door frames, gravestones, paving, packing layers, gravel, curbs and boundary stones.
In the area around Braunlage it was mainly used for building plinths. The war memorial in Braunlage was also carved from this granite.
See also
literature
- Wilhelm Dienemann , Otto Burre: The usable rocks in Germany and their deposits with the exception of coal, ores and salts . Enke, Stuttgart 1928, p. 16 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Wolf-Dieter Grimm: Pictorial atlas of important memorial stones of the Federal Republic of Germany . In: Michael Petzet (Ed.): Workbooks of the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation . No. 50 . Lipp, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-87490-535-7 .
- ↑ The geological / structural units of the resin. (No longer available online.) TU Clausthal, Institute for Geology and Paleontology, archived from the original on July 19, 2011 ; Retrieved August 17, 2009 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Kurt Mohr: Geology and mineral deposits of the Harz . 2nd Edition. Schweizerbart, Stuttgart 1993, p. 414 .
