Carboniferous
Carboniferous (here about 313 - 299 million years ago)
The oldest rocks exposed on the earth's surface date back to the Carboniferous period and are about 300 million years old. However, they can only be found at the three elevations of the Hüggel, Piesberg and Schafberg. At that time, today's elevations and mountain ranges did not yet exist ...
While the polar caps were icy at that time, it was tropically warm here - after all, we were close to the equator, more precisely in a basin north of a huge mountain range, the Variscids. Braided river systems flowed through the basin alternating periodically with swamp forests, which were inhabited by metre-sized insects and other arthropods.
The deposits of the rivers eventually formed Carboniferous sandstone or quartzite, which is popular as gravel and building stone, and the peat of the swamps developed into bituminous coal, anthracite and mudstones. At 1,545 metres, the deepest adit in the former Schafberg coalfield was also the deepest coalmine in Europe until 1989.
Experience the Carboniferous at the Piesberg Culture and Landscape Park.
