The Sickingen Heights ( German : Sickinger Höhe ) form a landscape in the western part of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate . The region was named after the family of imperial knight, Franz von Sickingen (1481–1523), because most of the area belonged to the territory of the House of Sickingen in the Middle Ages .
21-570: The Sickingen Heights form the northern part of the Westrich Plateau ; about a third of the area within the county of Kaiserslautern and two-thirds in the county of Südwestpfalz . It extends from Sickingen's town of Landstuhl in the north almost to the town of Zweibrücken in the south and from the border between Rhineland-Palatinate and the Saarland in the west to the Palatinate Forest in
42-527: A closer affinity with the Triassic Tethys realm . The Muschelkalk can be up to 100 meters thick; it is divisible into three subdivisions, of which the upper and lower are pale thin-bedded limestones with greenish-grey marls , the middle group being composed of gypsiferous and saliniferous marls with dolomite. Stylolites are common in all the Muschelkalk limestones. The lithostratigraphic status of
63-736: A marked scarp slope , the Sickingen Escarpment, to the northwest (towards the Homburg Basin) and especially to the north, towards the Landstuhl Marsh . By contrast, the eastern edge of the Westrich transitions rather smoothly from its muschelkalk plateau to the bunter sandstone of the Palatine Forest . The subdivisions of the plateau along the Moosalb and near Eppenbrunn also extend into
84-535: A narrow strip of land southwest of Blieskastel (right = west of the Blies) as part of the Zweibrücken Westrich. Muschelkalk The Muschelkalk (German for "shell-bearing limestone"; French : calcaire coquillier ) is a sequence of sedimentary rock strata (a lithostratigraphic unit ) in the geology of central and western Europe. It has a Middle Triassic (240 to 230 million years) age and forms
105-734: Is a landscape in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate , with small areas also in the Saarland ( Saarpfalz-Kreis ). Its heart is in the southwest of the Palatinate region and it is part of the historic region of Westrich . The Westrich Plateau consists mainly of the Sickingen Heights in the north and the Zweibrücken Hills in the south which, morphologically, belong more to northeastern Lorraine in France ). The main plateau falls away in
126-528: Is divided into six formations: Jena Formation , Rüdersdorf Formation , Udelfangen Formation , Freudenstadt Formation and Eschenbach Formation . The Lower Muschelkalk is sometimes called Wellenkalk , German : Welle the "wave" chalk, so called on account of the buckled wavy character the bedding has received. In the Saarland and Alsace and northern Eifel , the Lower Muschelkalk has more sandy beds,
147-417: Is often composed entirely of the fragmentary stems of the crinoid Encrinus liliiformis ; higher up come beds with a series of ammonites , Ceratites compressus , Ceratites nodosus , and Ceratites semipartitus in ascending order. In Swabia and Franconia the highest beds are platy dolomites with Tringonodus sandergensis and the crustacean Bairdia . In addition to the fossils mentioned above,
168-513: The Muschelsandstein ., "mussel sandstone" The Middle Muschelkalk or Anbydnite Group consists mainly of evaporites (gypsum, anhydrite and halite ) and is divided into three formations: Karlstadt Formation , Heilbronn Formation and Diemel Formation . The sedimentary facies at the margins of the Germanic Basin is different and these deposits are classified as a separate formation,
189-676: The Grafenwöhr Formation , which continues into the Upper Muschelkalk. In the Middle Muschelkalk, weathering can form characteristic cellular dolomite ( Zellendolomit ). The Upper Muschelkalk ( Hauptmuschelkalk ) is similar to the Lower Muschelkalk and consists of regular beds of shelly limestone, marl and dolomite. It is divided into six formations: Trochitenkalk , Meißner Formation , Irrel Formation , Gilsdorf Formation and Warburg Formation . The lower portion or Trochitenkalk
210-721: The Low Countries , the North Sea and parts of Silesia , Poland and Denmark . Outcrops are found in Thuringia , the Harz , Franconia , Hesse , Swabia , and the Saarland and in Alsace . The Muschelkalk was deposited in a land-locked sea which, in the earlier part of its existence, had only imperfect communications with the more open waters of the Tethys Ocean to the south. The basin in which
231-668: The bunter sandstone of the Karlstal beds outcrop along the escarpment , for example the Heidenfelsen near Hauptstuhl , the eponymous rocks near Bärenloch in Kindsbach or the rock landscape in the Fleischackerloch near Landstuhl. Somewhat less rugged in appearance is the plateau's westward transition to the Saarland and even less than that in the east, where the valley of the Moosalb forms
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#1732868585818252-487: The Muschelkalk differs regionally. In Germany it is considered a group , in the Netherlands a formation . The German Muschelkalk Group is subdivided into three subgroups: Upper, Middle and Lower Muschelkalk. The Lower Muschelkalk consists mainly of limestone, calcareous marls and clayey marls. Some beds are composed of porous cellular limestone, the so-called Schaumkalk , there are also oolite beds. The Lower Muschelkalk
273-621: The Muschelkalk was deposited is called the Germanic Basin . Sometimes stratigraphic units with the same age from the Alps , southern Europe and even Asia are called Muschelkalk too. Of course these rocks have little history in common with the central European Muschelkalk except for similarities in fossil content. Closer at hand, the Alpine Muschelkalk differs in many respects from that of Central Europe, and in its characteristic fossil fauna has
294-668: The boundary. In the south the Sickingen Heights transition almost seamlessly into the Zweibrücken Hills . Much of the Sickingen Heights is drained southwards by the Moosalb, Wallhalb and Auerbach into the Schwarzbach and then via the Blies , Saar and Moselle into the Rhine . The Lambsbach flows westwards directly into the Blies. The land is sparsely settled and the only large towns occur on
315-490: The east. The Sickingen Heights belong to the major region known as the Palatine-Saarland Muschelkalk Region ( Pfälzisch-Saarländisches Muschelkalkgebiet ). The hilly plateau, which lies at heights from 300 to 430 m above sea level (NN) descends very steeply in the north in several, densely wooded, escarpments to the Landstuhl Marsh . Numerous small and medium-sized rock formations from
336-526: The following are Muschelkalk forms: Coenothyris vulgaris, Mentzelia mentzeli and Spiriferina hirsuta, Myophoria vulgaris, Rhynchotites hirundo, Ceratites munsteri, Ptychites studeri, Balatonites balatonicus, Aspidura scutellata, Daonella lommeli , and in the Alpine region several rock-forming algae (for example, Baciryllium, Gyroporella, and Diplopora ). The salt beds are worked at Halle (Saale) , Bad Friedrichshall , Heilbronn , Szczecin and Erfurt . It
357-479: The layers of rock. The name Muschelkalk was first used by German geologist Georg Christian Füchsel (1722-1773). In 1834, Friedrich August von Alberti included it into the Triassic system . The name indicates a characteristic feature of the unit, namely the frequent occurrence of lenticular banks composed of fossil shells. The Muschelkalk is restricted to the subsurface in most of Germany and adjacent regions as
378-938: The lower-lying perimeter of the plateau. There are no pan-regional transport routes, except for a mostly two-lane section of the A ;62 motorway Landstuhl– Pirmasens . Due to its remoteness, the region is well suited for hiking e.g. along the Mill Trail in the Wallhalb Valley. Over the Sickingen Heights runs the waymarked North Route of the Palatine sections of the historic Way of St. James . 49°19′32″N 7°30′36″E / 49.32556°N 7.51000°E / 49.32556; 7.51000 Westrich Plateau The Westrich Plateau ( German : Westricher Hochfläche ), also Zweibrücken Westrich ( Zweibrücker Westrich ) or Southwest Palatine Plateau ( Südwestpfälzische Hochfläche ),
399-469: The middle part of the three-part Germanic Trias (that gives the Triassic its name) lying above the older Buntsandstein and below the younger Keuper . The Muschelkalk (" mussel - chalk ") consists of a sequence of limestone and dolomite beds . In the past, the time span in which the Muschelkalk was deposited could also be called "Muschelkalk". In modern stratigraphy , however, the name only applies to
420-638: The plateau's western boundary with the Saint Ingbert-Kirkeler Woods and, further south, with the Bliesgau , runs (according to the Bundesanstalt für Landeskunde , Saarbrücken sheet , and popular opinion) just west of the state border with Saarland and does not cross the valley of the Blies , which from here on forms the boundary with the first-named of the two regions. This compares with a purely Saarland division according to Quasten which also counts
441-703: The wooded region of the Palatine Forest Nature Park . In the east the land gradually descends to the settlement fringe of Pirmasens and the Trualbe , opposite the Queidersbach and the Moosalb valley, which forms the actual eastern boundary. To the south the Zweibrücken Hills continue the plateau into France , and more specifically into the Bitscherland and the Alsace bossue . The central section of
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