The Silberberg ("silver mountain"), at , (along with the Spießhorn, ,) is the most prominent summit in the mountain group around the Herzogenhorn () in the Black Forest in the southwest German state of Baden-Württemberg. It lies about 4 kilometres east of the town of

Todtnau Todtnau is a town in the district of Lörrach in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. As of 2009 its population was of 4,932. Geography It is situated in the Black Forest, on the river Wiese, 20 km southeast of Freiburg. The municipality coun ...

Location and topography

The central highlands of the

Southern Black Forest The Southern Black Forest (german: Südschwarzwald) is the highest part of the Black Forest, an area heavily transformed by ice age glaciation south of a line roughly from Freiburg im Breisgau to Donaueschingen. The term High Black Forest is no ...

are formed by the Feldberg region () in the north and the group of mountains around the Herzogenhorn in the south, both separated by the Feldberg Pass and the deep valley of Trogtal through which the upper

Wiese Wiese may refer to: Places Modern day * Wiese (Apfeldorf), a village in Apfeldorf, Landsberg am Lech, Bavaria, Germany * Wiese (Märkische Heide), a village in Märkische Heide, Oder-Spree, Brandenburg, Germany * Wiese (Much), a village in Much ...

runs. The rocky dome of the Silberberg drops steeply to the north by a good 550 metres forming one of the highest mountain faces in the Feldberg region. To the southeast the mountain is bounded by the upper reaches of the Prägbach. The latter runs parallel to the Wiese, but 400 metres above it, the southeastern mountainside descending only relatively gently. It transitions to the high pastures of the upper Prägbach valley. The forested northern mountainside is divided by

cirque A (; from the Latin word ') is an amphitheatre-like valley formed by glacial erosion. Alternative names for this landform are corrie (from Scottish Gaelic , meaning a pot or cauldron) and (; ). A cirque may also be a similarly shaped landform ...

-like niches and craggy ridges that are like arêtes in places.

Rocks and minerals

The Silberberg, like the whole upper Wiese valley is mostly made of paragneisses. Also present here, are several vein-line porphyry deposits, which were probably formed towards the end of the

Variscan mountain building The Variscan or Hercynian orogeny was a geologic mountain-building event caused by Late Paleozoic continental collision between Euramerica (Laurussia) and Gondwana to form the supercontinent of Pangaea. Nomenclature The name ''Variscan'', come ...

phase, and amphibolite. Both are very resistant to weathering and tend, therefore, to form crags. A number of mineral lodes run through the Silberberg with a total length of several kilometres and of medium thickness up to 1.2 metres. In the quartz,

fluorspar Fluorite (also called fluorspar) is the mineral form of calcium fluoride, CaF2. It belongs to the halide minerals. It crystallizes in isometric cubic habit, although octahedral and more complex isometric forms are not uncommon. The Mohs scal ...

baryte Baryte, barite or barytes ( or ) is a mineral consisting of barium sulfate ( Ba S O4). Baryte is generally white or colorless, and is the main source of the element barium. The ''baryte group'' consists of baryte, celestine (strontium sulfate), ...

calcite Calcite is a Carbonate minerals, carbonate mineral and the most stable Polymorphism (materials science), polymorph of calcium carbonate (CaCO3). It is a very common mineral, particularly as a component of limestone. Calcite defines hardness 3 on ...

and dolomite veins are

galena Galena, also called lead glance, is the natural mineral form of lead(II) sulfide (PbS). It is the most important ore of lead and an important source of silver. Galena is one of the most abundant and widely distributed sulfide minerals. It cryst ...

, chalcopyrite and silver ores. The Silberberg is also the only place in the Black Forest to date where tremolite has been found.

Mining

The name of the mountain recalls the silver mining of bygone years. It is part of the Todtnau mining region, in which silver was mined as early as the Middle Ages. The oldest record of ore mines on the Silberberg dates to 1028. In the western, neighbouring cirque of ''Zimmerwinkel'' the ''Dr. Tholus Brunnen'' gallery was worked by the ''Gewerkschaft

Finstergrund The Finstergrund Pit (german: Grube Finstergrund) near Wieden in the Black Forest in Germany is an abandoned medieval silver and lead mine that was also used in the modern era to extract fluorite and baryte. Since 1982 it has been used as a visi ...

'' from 1968 until 1970 in order to extract fluorite and baryte.Mineralienatlas Deutschland
retrieved 5 May 2012

Tourism

A rock path runs up the steep, northern slopes of the Silberberg that was originally blazed by the Black Forest Club but, like the Alpine Path on the Feldberg has been abandoned. The very varied footpath has a few exposed sections but is still passible.

References

{{reflist One-thousanders of Germany Ski areas and resorts in Germany Mountains and hills of Baden-Württemberg Mountains and hills of the Black Forest