| Taunus | |
|---|---|
| die Höhe, 'the height' | |
 Hochtaunus withGroßer Feldberg as its highest point | |
| Highest point | |
| Peak | Großer Feldberg (Hochtaunus) |
| Elevation | 878 m (2,881 ft) |
| Coordinates | 50°14′N08°27′E / 50.233°N 8.450°E /50.233; 8.450 |
| Dimensions | |
| Length | 75 km (47 mi) NE/SW |
| Width | 35 km (22 mi) NW/SE |
| Area | 2,700 km2 (1,000 sq mi) |
| Geography | |
 Geographical subdivision of the Taunus with shaded relief | |
| Country | Germany |
| Region(s) | Hesse &Rhineland-Palatinate |
| Parent range | Rhenish Slate Mountains |
| Geology | |
| Orogeny | Variscan |
| Rock age | Devonian |
| Rock type(s) | Phyllite,Greywacke |
TheTaunus (German pronunciation:[ˈtaʊnʊs]ⓘ) is amountain range inHesse andRhineland-Palatinate, Germany, located north west ofFrankfurt and north ofWiesbaden. The tallest peak in the range isGroßer Feldberg at 878 m; other notable peaks areKleiner Feldberg (825 m) andAltkönig (798 m).
The range is bounded on three sides (west, north, and south) by theRhine and its tributaries, namely theLahn and theMain, and on the east by the plain ofWetterau. It spans thedistricts ofHochtaunuskreis,Main-Taunus-Kreis,Rheingau-Taunus,Limburg-Weilburg, andRhein-Lahn. The range is known for itsgeothermal springs andmineral waters that formerly attracted members of the European aristocracy to itsspa towns. The car lineFord Taunus is named after it.[1]
The Taunus is the southeastern part of theRhenish Slate Mountains. The low mountain range is about 75 km long from southwest to northeast and about 35 km wide across it from northwest to southeast,it covers an area of about 2700 km2. In the west,the Upper Middle Rhine Valley borders the Taunus and separates it from the westernHunsrück. In the north, thevalley of the Lahn (Giessen-KoblenzerLahntal) with theLimburg Basin forms a very sharp scenic border to the northernWesterwald. In the east, theGiessen Basin (southernmost part of theWest Hessian Uplands) withDießenbach andKleebach border to the north, theWetterau withWetter andNidda to the south of the slate mountains; in the south, theRheingau and theMain-Taunus foothills form natural borders. The last three landscapes are part of theRhine-Main lowlands.
On the southern edge are the towns ofRüdesheim am Rhein,Wiesbaden,Hofheim am Taunus andBad Homburg vor der Höhe at the junctions with thevalleys of the Upper Rhine andMain; the towns ofBad Nauheim andButzbach are on the eastern edge at the junction with theWetterau; in the north on theLahn the towns ofWetzlar,Weilburg,Bad Ems andLahnstein border on theHintertaunus; in the west in theMiddle Rhine is, among other things,Lorch at the seam (each in an anti-clockwise direction).[2]
The Taunus is a heterogeneous landscape area, but it is usually quite distinct from the surrounding landscapes and is classified as a mainnatural area unit group. The natural landscape is divided according tomorphology,geological structure,climate and partly by the prevailing vegetation into sub-landscapes that are more uniform in themselves. The cultural landscape, i.e. the natural landscape shaped by man, shows the following structure in terms of land use, the location and distribution of settlements and the course of traffic routes.
In the south are the more wooded and higher parts, namely theVordertaunus (naturally also called Vortaunus) and theHohe Taunus (aroundTaunus main ridge), where in the Feldberg massif the highest heights not only of the Taunus but of the entireRhenish Slate Mountains are reached. That is why the climate here is rougher than in the upstream landscape areas - it is colder on average, it rains and, in particular, it snows more. The turbulent relief offers little space for settlements andagricultural use. On the mostly shallow andfertile soils, which developed fromacidic rock, there is mainly forest here. TheVortaunus is more inconsistent than the main ridge, it is morphologically more fragmented and the bays of the foothills divide it more.
Hintertaunus is the name given to the area north of theHoher Taunus up to theLahn valley. The landscape here is lower and less mountainous than in the southern Taunus. Between the valleys, some of which are quite deep, there are pronounced plateaus (leveled areas) with heavy agricultural use. Since mostly only the slopes of the valley are forested, the Hintertaunus is generally more open. The landscape of the Hintertaunus is more inconsistent because of its different elevations. This is clearly evident in the eastern Hintertaunus. Here, for example, there is a high-altitude landscape with dense forest cover, a harsher climate and poor soil in thePferdskopf-Bergland; but also theUsinger basin, a gently undulating, open basin landscape with fertile soil and a balanced climate.
The Hintertaunus is divided into theWestern andEastern Hintertaunus by the Idstein Depression, which developed in theIdstein–Bad Camberg area. The Idstein depression widens towards the Lahn valley towards the Limburg Basin and is also known as theGoldener Grund in the northern area, probably because agriculture found more favorable conditions here. The relief is gently undulating, the soil is fertile due to the high proportion of loess and the climate is milder due to the basin location.
The Taunus (main unit group 30) is subdivided in terms of natural space as follows:[3][4]
The Taunus is geologically divided from south to north into the units Vordertaunus unit (also northernphyllite zone ormetamorphic southern edge zone), Taunus ridge unit and Hintertaunus unit. Finally, south of the Lahn, the Taunus natural region has a share in the Lahntrough and theGiessen nappe.
The Vordertaunus Unit is a narrow zone of weaklymetamorphic rocks such asphyllites,greenschists andsericite gneisses.[5] They are appear greenish throughchlorite andepidote. The starting products of these rocks weremudstones andvolcanic rocks. The rock strata occurring in the Vordertaunus are divided from north to south into the metavolcanic sequence, the Eppstein slate and the Lorsbach slate.[5]
The oldestsedimentary rocks of the Taunus are the phyllites ofBierstadt from theEarly Ordovician epoch, known only from a borehole inWiesbaden, with an age of about 480 million years determined by the evidence ofspores. The volcanic rocks of the metavulcanite unit are younger, they could be dated to theUpper Ordovician andSilurian usinguranium-lead dating. They are overlaid by the Eppstein slates of the Silurian and theLower Devonian Lorsbach slates. At the very southern edge and in a small deposit nearMühlbach in the east of the Vordertaunus unit, limestones are exposed that are attributed to theMiddle Devonian.[6]
To the north of the Vordertaunus is the Taunuscrest, also known as the High Taunus, which mainly consists ofLower Devonianclastic rocks. It is composed of thestratigraphic sequencesGraue Phyllite,Bunte Schiefer,Hermeskeilschichten andTaunusquarzit. The Lower Devonian sub-layer only appears in two small outcrops, metavolcanites of the type found in the Anterior Taunus rocks.[7]
TheGraue Phyllite consist ofslates andsandstones. They contain impressions ofUpper Silurianbrachiopods andcorals and were deposited inshallow water. The clay slates of theBunte Schiefer are greenish-grey or strikinglyviolet in color due to finely distributedhematite.Agnaths (jawless fish) found in theBunte Schist are from theGedinne (Lochkovian); just like the formation of therock, they show a deposit of the colorful slate inrivers orlakes. The rocks of the colorful slate are found on theGroßer Feldberg, where they were mined in tunnels to extract roofing slate (slate tunnel below theRed Cross).Quartzite sandstones are embedded in them, from which the Brunhildis rock on the summit of the Großer Feldberg consists. TheHermeskeil layers are exposed below the Großer Feldberg and consist of mudstones, weakly consolidated micaceous sandstones and quartzites of the Lower Siegen (Lower Pragian). They are covered by several 100 m thick layers of Taunus quartzite (Middle Siegen, Pragian/Emsian). The very weather-resistant rock forms many summits of the Taunus ridge (Altkönig,Kleiner Feldberg,Glaskopf), but also individual rock elevations (such as theHohle Stein). TheCeltic ring walls and the rubble heap on the "White Wall" on the Altkönig consist of Taunus quartzite. The fractured groundwater of the Taunus quartzite is of local interest for water extraction. They are dammed by the underlyingHermeskeilschichten and pumped through groundwater tunnels. Four such groundwater tunnels make a significant contribution to Wiesbaden's water supply.
The largest unit of the Taunus in terms of area, the Hintertaunus unit, is mainly composed of the black rock series of theHunsrück slate and the Singhofen layers of the lower Ems tier, oftengreywacke-like sandstones as well assiltstone andclaystone. Younger rocks are only exposed here in small occurrences nearUsingen and on the very eastern edge of the Hintertaunus in theOberkleen area. The geology of the Hintertaunus is not as well known as that of the Vortaunus and Hochtaunus in the south or that of the Lahnmulde in the north due to the often monotonous sandy and slate rocks that form only a few continuous referencehorizons and provide hardly anyindex fossils.
The Hunsrück slate refers to arock facies occurring mainly in the Hunsrück and Hintertaunus, which is composed of pure, mostly black mudstone and embedded sandstone banks and occurs in stratigraphically different positions in the Upper Siegen and in the Ems. The bulk of the Hunsrück Slate is attributed to theElm Lower Stage.[8] It is known for its exceptionally well-preservedfossils and is locally well suited for use asroofing slate. In the western Hintertaunus, the almost sand-free Hunsrück slate can be easily separated from the sandy rocks of the Singhofen layers, in the east, rocks in thefacies of the Hunsrück slate recede. Transposed volcanictuffes andashes, the so-calledporphyroides, are integrated into the Singhofen layers, they can be traced in some cases over several tens of kilometers.[9]
The Middle Devonian to Lower Carboniferous of theUsinger Mulde is only about 250 m thick and strongly tectonically disturbed, in the Lahnmulde and Dillmulde typical rocks of this time such asSchalstein,Massenkalk anddeck diabase absent here. The greywacke occurring here and at other places in the eastern Hintertaunus cannot or can hardly be distinguished from theCarboniferous Kulm greywacke[10] and are considered by some scientists to be the remains of the viewedGiessen Ceiling.[9]
The strata of the Taunus were formed in the course of theVariscan orogenyfoliated, scaled and in the southwest-northeaststrikesaddles andtroughs folded. Thefolds are predominantlynorthwestvergent. Widespread to the northwest, the rock series were thrust onto younger ones. Thus, at the fault zone of the Taunuskammoverthrust, the entire length of the southern Taunus nappe-like was thrust over rocks of the Younger Lower Devonian. The overthrust of the Giessen Nappe, which lies flat today, on rocks from the Hintertaunus and the Lahn Mulde is of even greater extent. Their rocks are not otherwise found in the Taunus, they must have been deposited south of the Vortaunus and were thrust at least 25 km over the Taunus and Hintertaunus, possibly significantly more due to large-scale considerations. In addition to thedeformation of the layers, these are clearlymetamorphic in the Vordertaunus – the latter clearly decreases to the north.
In later uplift phases between the Late Jurassic and theTertiary,cross-fractures were applied perpendicular to strike. The rift valley of the Idstein Depression divides the Hintertaunus into an eastern and western part, while the Limburg Basin divides the Lahn Mulde as it sinks. Some of the fractures are now filled withquartz. The free-standing rocks of theEschbacher cliffs near Usingen are such a quartz vein (Härtling) exposed byerosion. This vein, also known as the Usinger quartz vein, can be traced over a length of about 12 km, making it one of the longest German quartz veins after the Bavarian Pfahl.
The northwestern part of theEastern Hintertaunus(Langhecker Lahntaunus), which leads to the Weilburger Lahntalgebiet, belongs geologically to theLahnmulde and is rich inmagmatism. of mineral resources from the Middle Devonian such asiron in the form of red ironstone with up to 50 percent iron content, or river ironstone with up to 35% iron, as well assilver ore,roofing slate anddiabase. The ore was mined in numerous mines here, as in the Montan areaLahn-Dill area; some have been converted to visitor mines. Themining that operated from the 17th to the 20th centuries has now ceased. In the eastern Taunus between Idstein in the west and Usingen in the east, from the late Middle Ages to the early 20th century, there was a large number of pits in which there was mining of varying intensity on post-varistic, i.e. only after the varistic orogeny ore veins formed in the late Jurassic and early Cretaceous. The last active lead and silver ore mine, the Heftrich pit with the Hannibal and Hasdrubal tunnels, was closed around 1924. Exploration drilling carried out by the Hessian State Office for Soil Research in the 1980s no longer provided any indication of deposits worth building.[11]
Due to its hardness, the Taunus quartzite was often mined in the past, currently only one quarry near Köppern is in operation. Some limestone and diabase quarries are still in operation in the part of the Lahnmulde that belongs to the Taunus. In addition, there are countless smaller quarries to supply the local population with building blocks.
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The RomanLimes was built across the Taunus. TheSaalburg, a restored Roman castellum, now houses a museum.
After thefall of the Limes (in 259/260 AD), theAlamanni settled in the range and for this reason there are some Alemannic cemeteries in the southern foothills of the Taunus (Eschborn). This area of the Taunus became part of theFrankish confederation of Germanic tribes after theBattle of Tolbiac around 500 AD.[12]
Until the late 18th century, the mountain range was known simply asdie Höhe ("the height"), a name that has been preserved in the place namesBad Homburg vor der Höhe andRosbach vor der Höhe. The nameTaunus comes fromTacitus'sAnnals, which mention acastellum in monte Tauno, probably in reference to today'sFriedberg.
In past centuries the Taunus became famous among aristocrats for its therapeutichot springs.[13]
Certain towns in the area, such asBad Homburg vor der Höhe with itsKurpark, havegeothermal spas that were formerly renowned. Other spa towns in the Taunus range areBad Schwalbach (formerlyLangenschwalbach) mentioned in documents dating back to the 16th century,Bad Ems, one of the most reputed therapeutic spas in Germany since the 17th century, as well asBad Weilbach, where a spring reached wide fame for some time. By the 19th century the most famous spa towns in the area wereWiesbaden, Bad Homburg vor der Höhe,Bad Nauheim, andBad Soden am Taunus.[14]
Subdivisions of theRhenish Massif | ||
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| Other | |
