For those of you traveling to Harz region in Germany I highly recommend a visit to the Kräuterpark Altenau. This is a family-own garden with lots of green spices and herbs. There is also a nice “spice pagoda” where you can read about the trips made by the owner in the whole world in search for spices. But the most exciting part is the spice gallery, a big room where you can smell and test over 350 spice mixtures from all over the world:

Spices from all over the world at Kräuterpark Altenau

The spices are mixed in the house (some of them roasted) and then displayed on a rack along the walls. The feeling is amazing, after smelling 10 samples you get so hungry… We bought several spices for meat and fish dishes and promised to return to the shop (by the way, they have an online shop too). But when I saw this display I couldn’t stop myself taking a photo and thinking of a great… sand collection :)

Shale (in German: Schiefer) is the name used for a sedimentary rock made of… mud (actually a mix of clay and some other minerals like quartz and calcite). The fine-graded rock can be broken into parallel layers and it is often used in Germany for covering the roofs of houses in mountain areas.

House covered in shale rock (source: Wikipedia)

During out trip to Harz we met plenty of houses like this but also natural formations where we could observe the rock outcrops in their natural beauty. The Okerstausee lake is for example surrounded by such formations. On several places, the rock was weathered and transformed into small fragments of sand-like size so I just took a small sample for my Sand Atlas (sample no. 2295). The yellow color is actually clay brought by the tidal action onto the lake shores.

Shale rock fragments at Okerstausee (Lower Saxony, Germany)

The Tharandt Forest is one of the biggest forests in Saxony located at only 20 km west of Dresden. These two reasons gave us sufficient motivation for a one-day trip during the prolonged Pentecost weekend. Nevertheless, there is at least one more reason for going to Tharandt: the Geological Open-Air Museum, another time journey through the geological Earth’s history. The so-called museum is actually a nature trail with 23 info points in the forest that witness the dramatic modifications that Tharandt suffered over the past 570 millions of years: formation of mountains, volcanic eruptions, river deltas, sea flooding, ice ages etc.

This could be described on short as following (on the left – the approximate geological age in millions of years ago – mya-, on the right – the resulting rock type):

We walked along the hiking trail and stopped at several information boards. Each one focuses on a certain aspect of the geological transformation and you can observe some real hints just behind the panel.

Board no. 8 – Cretaceous epoch in Saxony

Our first stop was at a former quarry from the Cenoman period (part of the Cretaceous epoch – about 93 mya). The small quarry provided sandstone for the construction works in the surrounding area. Now vegetated, the quarry allowed me to take a small sand sample for the Sand Atlas: the orange colored sand reminded me of the sands from the Elbe Sandstone Mountains, fact confirmed by the information on the board – the sandstone belongs to the same plate as the formations south of Pirna about which I wrote in another post back in 2008.

Board no. 9 – Basalt volcanism in Tertiary epoch

The repetitive earthquakes created long cracks down to the earth mantle. The basaltic lava erupted and reached the surface in form of volcanic outbursts. Sometimes one can find several other minerals (including sandstone fragments) in the basaltic rocks such as pyroxene, olivine or feldspar. The basaltic fracture just behind the board no. 9 is very impressive:

Basalt quarry in Tharandt Open-Air Geological Museum (about 10 million years ago)

Board no. 7 – Spherical pitchstones

Like a game of nature, the several pitchstone boulders behind the information board no. 7 are very nice to look at and even more interesting to learn about. Pitchstone is a volcanic rock with dull, glassy aspect and very resistant to erosion. In comparison with obsidian (a volcanic rock with similar characteristics), pitchstone contains about 8% water in its structure.

Pitchstone in Tharandt Open-Air Geological Museum (about 310 million years ago)

The main color of pitchstone is black and, in case of Tharandt, the stone contains small red patches. Their presence in the main block is not yet clearly explained, some theories suggesting that they are foreign rock particles (most probably hematite – a red iron ore mineral) assimilated by the molten lava on its way to the surface. An important note: the pitchstones are protected by law in Tharandt Forest and cannot be collected. The photos above were taken without any disturbance of the stones’ natural position.

Board no. 2 – Phyllitic shale stones

Phyllite is a foliated metamorphic rock found in the surroundings of stones of the pre-Cambrian epoch. In Tharandt Open-Air Geological Museum we found phyllite behind the board no.2 in Mohorn-Grund (north of Tharandter Forest).

Phyllite in Tharandt Open-Air Geological Museum (about 370 million years ago)

Due to the high content in mica, phyllite has a nice silvery aspect but is very fragile and breaks easily just under the pressure of fingers (sample no. 2301 in Sand Atlas).

Magnified phyllite stone surface

Board no. 4 – Porphyry fan

Maybe the most spectacular geological formation is represented by the porphyry block at Mohorn-Grund in the northern part of Tharandt Geological Open-Air Museum. The area is just a small part of the volcano whose eruption 300 mya covered the whole Tharandt Forest area. The outburst had the form of glowing clouds involving gasses under enormous pressure.

Porphyry fan at Tharandt Open-Air Geological Museum (about 295 million years ago)

Porphyry formations in Tharandt Forest

The pyroclastic material sent into atmosphere by the dramatic explosion returned to the earth surface and melted by taking different shapes. The huge amount of material left behind an empty room inside the volcano body which filled with material from the surface. The rock fracture is impressive and attracts lots of tourists and visitors. Looking at the stone wall I notices an interesting area on the left side and climbed several meters to have a better look. One could see the single blocks of material similar to a basalt formation. From the top, the pluvial waters washed out the material and transformed it into a fine material, right perfect for a sample for the Sand Atlas (sample no. 2302):

2302 DE-SN

Unfortunately, we did not manage to visit the rest of information boards. We promised ourselves to do it next time since they offer even more interesting themes: ore mines (including silver ore), quartz deposits of Tertiary age, sands and gravels from Cretaceous, chalk pits and many more.

Note for the German readers of the Sand Atlas: a detailed geological map of the region and additional information about the geological park can be found here (in German only).

The Oderteich is a lake in Lower Saxony, Germany. The lake served as water reservoir for downstream mining activities (Sankt Andreasberg), nowadays being used also for recreational purposes. We had a stop at the lake during our trip to Harz and could observe the lake surroundings from close distance. The water has a reddish color given by dissolved humid acids from dead plant materials.

We noticed some big blocks of granite around the lake and were interested to know more about them. It seems that the lake has been completely surrounded by granite but with time, this has been eroded by transformed in sands and gravel. However, some boulders are still present as a prove of geological transformation in the area and look like swimming in the sandy material towards the water. Walking around the lake I was able to get a small sample for my Sand Atlas (sample no. 2296):

Germany – Lower Saxony – Oderteich

Questenberg is a small village with 350 inhabitants in the southern Harz and we just learned about it from the Geopark Harz leaflet no. 12. The village was mentioned in the guide for the presence of alabaster balls outcropping at the surrounding slopes. Alabaster intrusions are small, ball-like gypsum deposits concentrated within the mother rock. We have spotted the area from the main road but the slope was so steep, so we couldn’t have a closer look. However, we found a hiking trail leading to the hill top so we decided to give it a try. Climbing up the forest path we passed by some crumbly boulders.

The nearby info tabs explained us that we find ourselves on a huge anhydrite deposit. Anhydrite (CaSO₄) is a white (sometimes grayish) mineral that, in contact with water, it transforms to the more common gypsum (CaSO₄·2H₂O). So the boulders we have seen were most probably made of old gypsum rock, assumption confirmed after arriving on the top of the hill. The soft gypsum rock was eroded by rain and wind action to a fine powder and I couldn’t pass by without taking a small sample for the Sand Atlas collection.

The image above shows the surface of a small conglomerate. The material was rather unconsolidated and turned into a beautiful white sand just by pressing with fingers. The dark tone is from lightning, the material is almost white in reality.

But, although surrounded by gypsum (photo left), Questenberg is known for another reason: the legend says that the castle lord lost his daughter in the nearby forest. The desperate father asked for help at the inhabitants of the surrounding villages and found the girl on the third day of Pentecost holiday with a crest with two tassels. The castle lord was extremely happy and payed a lot of favors to his people. Since that day, every year the inhabitants of Questenberg raise a wooden symbol on the gypsum mountain in respect to their former castle lord (figure right).

As I wrote in a previous post, Harz region has been born from a sea bottom several hundreds of millions years ago. The remains of seashells and other marine animals have piled up and turned into a thick limestone layer which found its way out to the surface. An old quarry can be seen left exposed at the side of the road near Wernigerode, a beautiful city in the north of Harz. In the immediate vicinity of the quarry one can see an old defense tower dated back to the 11th century. At a closer look at the walls of this tower we could see small round seashells as a prove of the former marine origins of its construction bricks:

Small rounded seashell fossils from 285 million years ago in an old limestone quarry

Perhaps one of the most impressive moments during our trip to Harz mountains was visiting the Iberg Dripstone Cave (Iberger Tropfsteinhöhle). The cave is located on the western side of the mountains near Bad Grund city and is formed within a chalk deposit, a former coral reef about 385 million years ago. The cave was discovered in 16th century by miners but only opened to the public access in 1874.

In 2008, the cave administration opened the so-called Cave Experience Center with three components:

• Museum in the mountain (Museum im Berg) – a long gallery before the cave entry with nicely designed panels showing the formation of Iberg Dripstone cave from a coral reef and the movement into actual location.
• Fascination cave – the cave itself (partially opened to the public) with amazing dripstone formations
• Museum on the mountain (Museum am Berg) – the most impressive part of the complex: an extraordinary journey through the life and existence of ancient people living in a nearby cave.

The 30 minutes spent inside the cave were more than worthy but the museum installed outside topped them all: absolutely lovely way of combining graphic elements with informational content for waking up the visitors interest:

Inside the museum at Iberg Cave Experience Center

The museum focuses on a very exciting theme: human skeletons of 40 people have been found in another cave (Lichtenstein cave) located not far away from the complex. The group was a family clan living about 3,000 years ago in the Bronze Age, the cave having most probably a graveyard function. The most exciting part is the DNA information collected from the bones: it perfectly matched the DNA structure of 15 local people living nowadays nearby the cave. This amazing discovery has been reported as the “oldest family tree on earth” with direct genetic links over a time span of 3,000 years. Moreover, using modern techniques, the scientists could re-create the upper body parts of three members of the family clan. The exhibition at Iberg Cave Experience Center shows detailed information about their daily life, food gathering and preparation, plant and animal rests, tools, etc. And everything displayed in an absolutely professional manner – we highly recommend a visit to anyone travelling to Harz region.

Some people may complain that German natural landscape is rather unspectacular. The North Sea and Baltic Sea in the north, some mountains in the south and not so much in between. Well, for those who may think like that I strongly recommend a visit to the… Harz region!

Why is Harz so interesting and why am I writing about it on the Sand Atlas website? The answer is because Harz is maybe one of the most geologically diverse region in Germany with dramatic changes within very small areas (from here the nickname “Classic Geological Square Mile”). Nowadays Harz is a low mountain range stretched over 180 km long and 30 km wide with the highest peak, Brocken, at 1,141 m. Things get more exciting when we look back over several hundreds of millions years ago, when all continents were “glued” together forming one single piece of land called… Pangaea. At this time, Harz was located much closer to Equator than now, somewhere on the actual location of… Cairo. When Pangaea began to split in two super-continents (Gondwana and Laurasia), the water started to fill the gap between them. Also the Harz was covered by water and abundant sediments transported from the vicinity started to pile up on the sea bottom.

Reproduction of the Earth from Late Triassic (about 220 million years ago) showing the separation of Gondwana (in the south) from Laurasia (north) – source: Wikipedia Commons

Further on, various tectonic events caused the creation of faults and uplift movements, exposing the various rock deposits to the surface. Due to their high altitude the new formed mountains were quickly eroded (especially the upper new layers) and the underlying base rock was standing as low mountains. These processes led to the formation of numerous types of sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic rock deposits. Among the upper layers, most common are the argilaceous shales (German: Schiefer), greywackes and granite. and from the older ones, limestone and gypsum deposits.

Maybe so far nothing really extraordinary but, as I said before, the true beauty of Harz geological architecture is given by the density and diversity of geological formations. On small areas, massive metal ore deposits are for example accompanied by lignite and salt deposits, limestone beds or dolomite formations. This high availability of minerals and valuable elements gave the region important mining privileges for metal ores (Fe, Mn, Pb, Zn, Ar, Au etc) while the soft calcareous deposits provided the formation of many drip-stone caves and caverns.

During a four-day drive-and-camp trip in Harz we collected several samples and learned a lot about specific geological features. More details about the trip with large descriptions of individual locations are in preparation and will be posted within the next days.

The internet is also full of information about Harz but our preferred website is http://www.harzregion.de. The website is very informative and there you can download 18 leaflets in both German and English language (partly also in French) about the geological landmarks of the region.

The World Atlas of Sands is now available for mobile phones! The mobile theme does have almost all functions of the ‘normal’ one and makes use of a beautiful, user-friendly interface. Reading the articles is now more simple than ever: images are automatically scaled down to fit the screen, the fonts are clearly displayed at the optimum size and the pages are loading very fast. Now you can read your preferred articles while collecting sand on the beach! Just type in your browser the address www.sand-atlas.com and the mobile theme will automatically adapt to your mobile phone display.

Screen shots from the World Atlas of Sands website on iPhone 4.0

Checking the statistics of my website I just discovered how diverse and sometimes funny the search terms can be. Actually lots of visitors are browsing the Sand Atlas directly (either from bookmark or by just typing the www path in the address bar). However, many are landing at www.sand-atlas.com from a google inquiry and it’s really entertaining to look through all those search terms. For example, most searches are geology/mineralogy related, from sand shape to composition of certain sandstones in eastern Germany. ‘Sand color’ is also a very sought after term, as well as ‘foraminifera’ or the names of different places that I wrote about in my posts. There are also neat questions such as ‘is it ok to collect sand in kauai’ or ‘why does sand come in so many different colors’?