Geotope Barstone

The Legend of the Barstein

The name of the 617-meter-high Barstein, also known as Bartenstein, goes back to a medieval legend. Once a grim count ruled over this part of the Westerwald, exploiting his subjects. A traveling bard pointed out the count's unlawful actions and the plight of the poor population. The enraged count condemned the singer and chained him to a rock of today’s Barstein, so he would starve miserably. Lured by his singing, the animals of the forest nourished him and thwarted the cruel plan.

Its geological history is even much older. During the Devonian period, about 400 million years ago, the area of today’s Westerwald was part of a shelf sea several hundred kilometers wide, where large amounts of marine sediments (including Devonian massive limestones) were deposited. These were folded about 300 million years ago during the so-called "Variscan" mountain formation and displaced against one another along faults. This resulted in saddle and basin structures within the rock layers. In the Mesozoic era, the Variscan mountain range, the remnants of which form today’s Rhenish slate mountains, was largely eroded away. It was not until the Neogene period, around 24 million years ago, that the earth's crust in parts of the mountains moved again, and intense volcanic activity during the Tertiary led to the formation of stacks of basalt lava flows up to 150 meters thick. They constitute large areas of today’s Westerwald. Between the individual lava flows, layers of volcanic ejecta, from fine ashes to coarse block tuffs, can repeatedly be found. The rocks of the visible summit of the Barstein are the eroded remnants of a larger basalt layer, connected to a deep-reaching basalt vent in the earth's crust.

The GEOPARK Westerwald-Lahn-Taunus

The area of the Geopark extends over a region of particularly special geological, scenic, cultural, and mining-historical quality. Here, over 400 million years of Earth history and over 2000 years of mining history can be explored and experienced. Whether Lahn marble and iron ore from the Devonian period in the Lahn-Dill area, basalt and clay from the Tertiary period in the Westerwald, or the traces of the sea and mountain formation in the Taunus: Geological sights offer visitors the chance to dive deep into the exciting development history of the Earth. Come with us on a journey through time and discovery in our GEOPARK!

Text: GEOPARK Westerwald-Lahn-Taunus

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