Parkplatz Erntekreuz

Start of the 280 km long "German Volcano Road", which leads to the 39 highlights in the world of the Eifel volcanoes.

Hard to imagine what happened here almost 13,000 years ago. In the gently rolling landscape, the roof of a volcanic focus that had formed underground suddenly bursts open. A massive explosion shakes the area, caused by the underground contact of hot gases and groundwater. The volcano throws out huge amounts of ash and pumice. After just a few days, the chimney is so large that a gigantic ash column 30 kilometers high develops. The wind transports the volcanic particles more than 1,000 kilometers northeast to southern Sweden. In the south, the dusty precipitation reaches as far as northern Italy. The immediate area sinks under a rock cover more than 50 meters thick, pyroclastic flows surge through the neighboring valleys, which fill up with the volcanic rock masses. The spectacle lasts about two weeks and what remains is the two by three kilometer wide basin, on the edge of which we are standing today . Precipitation washes the fine-grained particles from the sloping slopes, which combine to form an impermeable layer of mud at the bottom of the basin. The Laacher See is created. The deepest point at 51 meters is directly above the chimney.

Opening times

Always freely accessible