Geotope of the year 2024 gets its own geostation
The GrenzWelten National Geopark has a new geostation: information on the geology and formation of the "Adorf Banded Shale" can now be read at the Geotope of the Year 2024 in the centre of Adorf. The information board was inaugurated and presented to the public on the occasion of Geotope Day on 15 September.
The initiator of the new geostation was geopark guide Gerd Rosenkranz, who had proposed the "Adorfer Bänderschiefer" as the geotope of the year. Dr Gerhard Fischer, a geologist from Bremen and expert in regional geology in the Diemelsee area, presented the geotope and explained the background to the formation of the special striations.
Dr Fischer was instrumental in the creation of the new geostation, for which GrenzWelten would like to express its sincere thanks. Geopark manager Dr Georg Bresser also thanked the geopark guides Christian Kümmel, Manfred Pauly and Gerd Rosenkranz as well as the municipality of Diemelsee for their support in organising and setting up the new geostation.
Background:
The Adorf banded shale is not a weathered wall, as a first glance might suggest. Rather, the unusual banding of the rock was formed in a former ocean during the Upper Devonian period around 380 million years ago. Its rhythmic striation clearly shows how depositional conditions change due to global climate fluctuations. Dark stripes indicate more organic material that was carried from the land into the sea by heavy rainfall, for example, and then sank. Light stripes characterise times when less organic material reaches the sea. The reason for this is probably so-called Milankovitch cycles, cyclical changes in solar radiation on the earth.