The Hitsche Maar lies in the

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 ...

Mountains between

Bitburg Bitburg (; ; ) is a city in Germany, in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate approximately 25 km (16 mi.) northwest of Trier and 50 km (31 mi.) northeast of Luxembourg (city), Luxembourg city. The American Spangdahlem Air Base i ...

and Ulmen. The

maar A maar is a broad, low-relief volcanic crater caused by a phreatomagmatic eruption (an explosion which occurs when groundwater comes into contact with hot lava or magma). A maar characteristically fills with water to form a relatively shallow ...

has a diameter of 60 metres and a

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 ...

depth of 5 metres. Known as the "smallest maar in the Eifel", the Hitsche has silted up to form a

sedge The Cyperaceae () are a family of graminoid (grass-like), monocotyledonous flowering plants known as wikt:sedge, sedges. The family (biology), family is large; botanists have species description, described some 5,500 known species in about 90 ...

marsh.

Name

The name of the maar, which is often shortened to ''Die Hitsche'' but also called the ''Hetsche'', ''Hättsche'', or ''Hütsche'', probably derives from the local dialect word for "toad".

Formation

The Hitsche Maar is a dry maar and lies west of the Alf valley in a group of volcanoes and two other maars: the Holzmaar and the

Dürres Maar __NOTOC__ The Dürres Maar is a maar located in the vicinity of the village of Gillenfeld, Germany in the West Eifel mountains about 400 metres northwest of the Holzmaar. The Dürres Maar ist a dry maar, the original maar lake has silted u ...

. Like the other two, it lies along the geological fault line running from northwest to southeast caused by volcanic activity during the Weichselian glaciation and, with an age of over 20,000 years, is the oldest of these maars. The

tuff Tuff is a type of rock made of volcanic ash ejected from a vent during a volcanic eruption. Following ejection and deposition, the ash is lithified into a solid rock. Rock that contains greater than 75% ash is considered tuff, while rock co ...

s of the Hitsche Maar were covered by the tuffs from the Dürres Maar. ''Holzmaar, Dürre Maar, Hitsche Maar''
/ref>

References

{{coord, 50.124437, 6.870327, region:DE-RP_type:landmark, display=title Maars of the Eifel Vulkaneifel