The Bellerberg Volcano () is a

volcano A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most oft ...

group that was formed 200,000 years ago by a large number of individual

eruption A volcanic eruption occurs when material is expelled from a volcanic vent or fissure. Several types of volcanic eruptions have been distinguished by volcanologists. These are often named after famous volcanoes where that type of behavior has ...

Formation

The volcano complex lies in the

East Eifel The Eifel (; , ) is a low mountain range in western Germany, eastern Belgium and northern Luxembourg. It occupies parts of southwestern North Rhine-Westphalia, northwestern Rhineland-Palatinate and the southern area of the German-speaking Com ...

between the villages of Ettringen and

Kottenheim Kottenheim is a municipality in the Mayen-Koblenz, district of Mayen-Koblenz in Rhineland-Palatinate, western Germany. References

Municipalities in Rhineland-Palatinate Mayen-Koblenz {{MayenKoblenz-geo-stub ...

and the town of

Mayen Mayen () is a town in the Mayen-Koblenz, Mayen-Koblenz District of the Rhineland-Palatinate Federal State of Germany, in the eastern part of the Volcanic Eifel Region. As well as the main town, additional settlements include Alzheim, Kürrenberg, ...

on the edge of a

fault zone In geology, a fault is a planar fracture or discontinuity in a volume of rock across which there has been significant displacement as a result of rock-mass movements. Large faults within Earth's crust result from the action of plate tectonic f ...

of the

Middle Rhine Basin The Middle Rhine Basin () is the central landscape region of the Middle Rhine in Germany and, along with the Limburg Basin, forms one of the biggest intra-montane lowland regions within the Rhenish Massif. The basin is divided into the valley bott ...

. Violent movements caused disturbances in the

bedrock In geology, bedrock is solid rock that lies under loose material ( regolith) within the crust of Earth or another terrestrial planet. Definition Bedrock is the solid rock that underlies looser surface material. An exposed portion of bed ...

, so that, along this fault,

magma Magma () is the molten or semi-molten natural material from which all igneous rocks are formed. Magma (sometimes colloquially but incorrectly referred to as ''lava'') is found beneath the surface of the Earth, and evidence of magmatism has also ...

rose from a chamber at a depth of 10–20 km. Volcanic activity began approximately 200,000 years ago in the eastern part of the Bellerberg Volcano. Gaseous, 1,100 °C hot magma reached the Earth's surface at several eruption centres and formed smaller

cinder cone A cinder cone or scoria cone is a steep, volcanic cone, conical landform of loose pyroclastic rock, pyroclastic fragments, such as volcanic ash, clinkers, or scoria that has been built around a volcanic vent. The pyroclastic fragments are forme ...

s. Huge quantities of lava fragments, which were thrown mainly in an easterly direction, formed the cinder ridge of the Kottenheimer Büden. Gradually, a crescent-shaped

crater A crater is a landform consisting of a hole or depression (geology), depression on a planetary surface, usually caused either by an object hitting the surface, or by geological activity on the planet. A crater has classically been described ...

wall formed, which probably grew to more than 20 m high within a few days.Vulkanpark GmbH, Tafel 1 am Geopfad Ettringer Bellerberg In addition, longer fissures appeared, which produced large quantities of lava and thus gave rise to the

Ettringer Bellerberg The Ettringer Bellerberg, also called the Ettringer Bellberg, is a hill, , forming the western flank of the Bellerberg Volcano, a volcano system that was active about 200,000 years ago. Geography Location The Ettringer Bellerberg rises in the ...

. At a later date, gas pressure from the magma chamber decreased and the explosive fountains dried up. Instead, three lava streams flowed out of the Bellerberg Volcano which, thousands of years later were to become the basis of the economy in the surrounding villages in the form of

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...

lava deposits: the Ettringer lava stream, the Mayen lava stream and the Winfeld lava stream. The Ettringen lava stream was the shortest, but most powerful of the three, and later formed the quarry area of the Ettringer Lay. The longest was the Mayen lava stream. Lava flowed more than 3 kilometres south into the valley of the

Nette Nette can refer to: Rivers * Nette (Innerste), a river in Lower Saxony, Germany, tributary to the Innerste * Nette (Hase), a river in Lower Saxony, Germany, tributary to the Hase * Nette (Middle Rhine), a river in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, tri ...

and was the basis for the quarries of the Mayener Grubenfeld. The northern stream, the Winfeld lava stream, became the quarry area of Kottenheimer Winfeld. * Angelika Hunold: ''Das Erbe des Vulkans. Eine Reise in die Erd- und Technikgeschichte zwischen Eifel und Rhein.'' Schnell + Steiner und Verlag des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums, Regensburg/Mainz 2011,

References

{{coord, 50.347334, 7.230359, region:DE-RP_type:landmark, display=title Volcanoes of Germany Geography of the Eifel Mayen-Koblenz