Frankenau's Wichtelsteine are Geotope of the Year 2023

The Geotope of the Year 2023 has been chosen - the jury of the National Geopark GrenzWelten has decided on the Wichtelsteine near Frankenau. The title has already been awarded for the seventh time and this year, after two years of awards beyond the district border, it once again goes to an earth-historical object in the Waldeck-Frankenberg district.

Since 2017, the GrenzWelten Geopark project office has been using the campaign to draw the public's attention to exceptional geotopes and thus increase their awareness in the region. At the same time, the value and worthiness of protection of the "Geotopes of the Year", but also of other geological formations in the GrenzWelten, are emphasised.

This year, the jury was able to choose from 13 proposals for the Geotope of the Year. With the Wichtelsteinen near Frankenau, a formation has been nominated that has been the focus of the Geopark for some time. A geo-station has just been installed there in cooperation with the town of Frankenau. It offers exciting information about the Wichtelsteinen directly on site.

The Wichtelsteinen are rock formations that have been designated as a geological natural monument and are thus particularly worthy of protection. The rocks find their origin 340 million years before our time, in the so-called Lower Carboniferous. At that time, the region lay at the transition of a shallow, tropical sea to the deep sea. Over millions of years, sediments of various grain sizes accumulated there and regularly slid down the continental slope as underwater avalanches. These sediments later formed rocks such as clay slate, greywacke or conglomerate.

Today's rock formations of the Wichtelsteine consist largely of a greywacke conglomerate; as marine sandstone, greywacke has also become the Rock of the Year 2023 due to its significance. Since time immemorial, the inhabitants of Franconia have seen pixies in the rock formations. Children are told that these friendly creatures disguise themselves as stones during the day and sneak into the village unnoticed at night to help people with their work.

The consequences of climate change also affected the tree population at the Wichtelsteine. Therefore, dead spruces were removed last year for reasons of traffic safety. The Lower Nature Conservation Authority of the district, HessenForst and the Frankenau building yard worked together on this measure. Since the Wichtelsteine are located directly on a circular hiking trail and in the immediate vicinity of the Edersee cycle path, they are easily accessible by car, bicycle and on foot.

Keywords:

Geopark GrenzWelten Environmental and Climate Protection Service