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Teltow () is both a geological
plateau In geology and physical geography, a plateau (; ; : plateaus or plateaux), also called a high plain or a tableland, is an area of a highland consisting of flat terrain that is raised sharply above the surrounding area on at least one side. ...
and also a
historical region History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...
in the German states of
Brandenburg Brandenburg, officially the State of Brandenburg, is a States of Germany, state in northeastern Germany. Brandenburg borders Poland and the states of Berlin, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Saxony. It is the List of Ger ...
and
Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
. As an historical region, the Teltow was one of the eight territories out of which the March of Brandenburg was formed in the 12th and 13th centuries. As a result of the (1239–1245) the question of territorial lordship of the newly created heart of the expanding
march March is the third month of the year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. Its length is 31 days. In the Northern Hemisphere, the meteorological beginning of spring occurs on the first day of March. The March equinox on the 20 or 2 ...
was finally decided here. Between 1835 and 1952 there was also a county, ; in addition a town immediately south of Berlin, in the present-day county of
Potsdam-Mittelmark Potsdam-Mittelmark is a ''Kreis'' (district) in the western part of Brandenburg, Germany. Its neighbouring administrative units are (clockwise from the north) the district of Havelland (district), Havelland, the free cities of Brandenburg (town), ...
, bears the name Teltow.


Geography and geology


Boundary

The Teltow is not a unified region, either from a historical or a landscape perspective. The present-day term is defined by an
ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages, and g ...
plateau In geology and physical geography, a plateau (; ; : plateaus or plateaux), also called a high plain or a tableland, is an area of a highland consisting of flat terrain that is raised sharply above the surrounding area on at least one side. ...
that consists mainly of ground moraine elements. Its natural northern border is defined by the range of the Tempelhofer Berge, among them the
Kreuzberg Kreuzberg () is a district of Berlin, Germany. It is part of the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg borough located south of Berlin-Mitte, Mitte. During the Cold War era, it was one of the poorest areas of West Berlin, but since German reunification in ...
rising to , along the southern bank of the Spree. To the east the borders are formed by the rivers Dahme, as well by the
Havel The Havel () is a river in northeastern Germany, flowing through the States of Germany, states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Berlin and Saxony-Anhalt. The long Havel is a right tributary of the Elbe. However, the direct distance from ...
and Nuthe to the west. To the southwest, the countryside around the Pfefferfließ is also counted as part of the Teltow, although it has no clear boundaries. The regional border in the south is unclear, because the ground moraines here were often eroded by ''
urstromtal An ''urstromtal'' (plural: ''Urstromtäler'') is a type of broad glacial valley, for example, in northern Central Europe, that appeared during the ice ages, or individual glacial periods of an ice age, at the edge of the Scandinavian ice sheet and ...
'' processes. For example, there are many small island plateaux. The boundary of the cultural landscape is general seen as the Baruth Urstromtal. Further south is the heathland of the Fläming. The Havel river separates the Teltow from the Nauen Plateau to the northwest. The Nuthe- Nieplitz Lowland, an ''urstromtal'' feature, separates it from the
sander A sander is a power tool used to smooth surfaces by abrasion with sandpaper. Sanders have a means to attach the sandpaper and a mechanism to move it rapidly contained within a housing with means to handhold it or fix it to a workbench. Woodw ...
plateau of the
Zauche Utrata (; ) is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Izbicko, within Strzelce County, Opole Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. It lies approximately north-east of Izbicko, north-west of Strzelce Opolskie, and south-east of the re ...
in the southwest and the
Berlin Urstromtal Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...
forms the boundary with the Barnim Plateau in the northeast. It is, however, disputed whether the Müggelberge hills, which are up to above sea level (NN), in southeast Berlin are part of the Teltow. From a geological standpoint they certainly are, because the hills have a similar development history. However, these upland remnants are completely isolated within the Berlin Urstromtal. If the River Dahme is taken as the eastern boundary of the Teltow the Müggelberge are neither part of the Teltow geologically nor from a cultural landscape perspective.


Geology, geomorphology and soils


Bedrock

One geological feature is the high Sperenberg hill on the northern rim of the Baruth Urstromtal. Uniquely for Brandenburg, the hill is made of
gypsum Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate Hydrate, dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, drywall and blackboard or sidewalk ...
. The rising column of
Zechstein The Zechstein ( German either from ''mine stone'' or ''tough stone'') is a unit of sedimentary rock layers of Late Permian ( Lopingian) age located in the European Permian Basin which stretches from the east coast of England to northern Poland. T ...
-age
salt In common usage, salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl). When used in food, especially in granulated form, it is more formally called table salt. In the form of a natural crystalline mineral, salt is also known as r ...
has pushed through all the more recent deposits here to form a
salt dome A salt dome is a type of structural dome formed when salt (or other evaporite minerals) intrudes into overlying rocks in a process known as diapirism. Salt domes can have unique surface and subsurface structures, and they can be discovered us ...
. Because all the readily soluble salts have been leached out, only a solution residue has been left on the surface of the gypsum.
Rock salt Halite ( ), commonly known as rock salt, is a type of salt, the mineral (natural) form of sodium chloride ( Na Cl). Halite forms isometric crystals. The mineral is typically colorless or white, but may also be light blue, dark blue, purple, pi ...
is only found at a depth of (about above NN). The gypsum hill is also of historic scientific interest, because it was here, in 1867, that the first borehole in the world to reach a depth of was drilled. The
geothermal gradient Geothermal gradient is the rate of change in temperature with respect to increasing depth in Earth's interior. As a general rule, the crust temperature rises with depth due to the heat flow from the much hotter mantle; away from tectonic plat ...
was found to be about 3  K/100 metres; this was also a first. Sperenberg gypsum was mined from the
Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...
to 1957 in several quarries. Other salt domes, which do not quite reach the surface, occur under
Mittenwalde Mittenwalde () is a town in the Dahme-Spreewald district, in Brandenburg, Germany. It is situated 30 km southeast of Berlin (centre). On May 28, 1562, the town of Mittenwalde lent Berlin 400 guilders, a debt which has never been repaid, tho ...
and the Blankensee lake. For the geological structure of the Teltow, they are of secondary significance, however.


Saale glaciation

While the deeply buried sediments of the Elster Ice Age have virtually no impact on the current appearance of the Teltow, the subsurface, sandy, gravelly sediments of the so-called Berlin Elbe course occur over a wide area. These deposits formed between the Elster and Saalian ice advances, when the
Elbe The Elbe ( ; ; or ''Elv''; Upper Sorbian, Upper and , ) is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Giant Mountains of the northern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia (western half of the Czech Republic), then Ge ...
flowed northwards from the location of present-day Torgau and crossed the area of the Fläming which did not yet exist. These sediments are of great economic importance, both as
groundwater Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and Pore space in soil, soil pore spaces and in the fractures of stratum, rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available fresh water in the world is groundwater. A unit ...
conduits and for the building materials industry. But they only outcrop at a small sand pit at Lindenberg near Jühnsdorf. The old Elbe strata are overlain by the very thick (40 metres or more) sediments of the Saale ice age. These are usually the depositions of
proglacial lake In geology, a proglacial lake is a lake formed either by the damming action of a moraine during the retreat of a melting glacier, a glacial ice dam, or by meltwater trapped against an ice sheet due to isostatic depression of the crust around t ...
s or
glacial till image:Geschiebemergel.JPG, Closeup of glacial till. Note that the larger grains (pebbles and gravel) in the till are completely surrounded by the matrix of finer material (silt and sand), and this characteristic, known as ''matrix support'', is d ...
. At several points they even break through the Weichselian deposits and are immediately on, or at least very close to, the earth's surface (for example, in Glienick near Zossen). Because the Saale ice shoved the underlying sediments strongly,
Tertiary Tertiary (from Latin, meaning 'third' or 'of the third degree/order..') may refer to: * Tertiary period, an obsolete geologic period spanning from 66 to 2.6 million years ago * Tertiary (chemistry), a term describing bonding patterns in organic ch ...
deposits are found at the surface in places. For example, in Schenkendorf near Königs-Wusterhausen in the second half of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century,
brown coal Lignite (derived from Latin ''lignum'' meaning 'wood'), often referred to as brown coal, is a soft, brown, Combustion, combustible sedimentary rock formed from naturally compressed peat. It has a carbon content around 25–35% and is considered ...
was extracted.


Weichsel glaciation and post-glacial development

Today's Teltow plateau in Brandenburg-Berlin was formed around 20,000 years ago during the Brandenburg stage of Weichsel glaciation. The Weichsel
ice sheet In glaciology, an ice sheet, also known as a continental glacier, is a mass of glacier, glacial ice that covers surrounding terrain and is greater than . The only current ice sheets are the Antarctic ice sheet and the Greenland ice sheet. Ice s ...
pushed southwards right over the Teltow before reaching the northern edge of the Baruth Urstromtal, the limit of its expansion to the south.
Terminal moraine A terminal moraine, also called an end moraine, is a type of moraine that forms at the terminal (edge) of a glacier, marking its maximum advance. At this point, debris that has accumulated by plucking and abrasion, has been pushed by the front e ...
s can be found there, for example, around Dobbrikow in
Luckenwalde Luckenwalde (; Upper Sorbian language, Upper and , , ) is the capital of the Teltow-Fläming district in the state of Brandenburg in eastern Germany. It is situated on the Nuthe river north of the Fläming Heath, at the eastern rim of the Nuthe-Ni ...
(Weinberg) and near Sperenberg. However, the line of terminal moraines is very patchy and is traces out an
ice front A glacier terminus, toe, or snout, is the end of a glacier at any given point in time. Although glaciers seem motionless to the observer, in reality they are in endless motion and the glacier terminus is always either advancing or retreating. Th ...
. To the north are ground moraines that have been deposited over a large area. Only south of
Ludwigsfelde Ludwigsfelde () is a town in the north of the district Teltow-Fläming in Brandenburg. Geography Location The town is located south of Berlin in the district Teltow-Fläming on the plateau of Teltow (region), Teltow. In earlier times, it was par ...
, does the contiguous ground moraine plateau of the Teltow begin.


Literature

* Theodor Fontane: ''Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg.'' Teil 4. Spreeland. Blankensee. Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main/Berlin, Ausgabe 1998, . Zitat Seite 274. * N. Hermsdorf: ''Zur quartären Schichtenfolge des Teltow-Plateaus.'' In: Brandenburgische Geowissenschaftliche Beiträge, 1, S. 27–37, Kleinmachnow 1995. * Herbert Lehmann: ''Das Bäketal in vorgeschichtlicher Zeit.'' Verwaltungsbezirk Berlin-Steglitz (Hrsg.) 1953. (Broschüre) * L. Lippstreu, N. Hermsdorf, A. Sonntag: ''Geologische Übersichtskarte des Landes Brandenburg 1:300.000 – Erläuterungen.'' Potsdam 1997, . * Adolf Hannemann: ''Der Kreis Teltow, seine Geschichte, seine Verwaltung, seine Entwicklung und seine Einrichtungen.'' Berlin 1931. * Carsten Rasmus, Bettina Rasmus: ''Berliner Umland Süd''. KlaRas-Verlag, Berlin 2002, . * Max Philipp: ''Steglitz in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart.'' Kulturbuch Verlag, Berlin 1968. * Gerhard Schlimpert: ''Brandenburgisches Namenbuch, Teil 3, Die Ortsnamen des Teltow.'' Hermann Böhlaus Nachf., Weimar, 1972. Zitat S. 187. * Wilhelm Spatz: ''Aus der Vergangenheit des Kreises Teltow.'' In: ''Groß Berliner Kalender, Illustriertes Jahrbuch 1913.'' Hrsg. Ernst Friedel. Verlag von Karl Siegismund Königlich Sächsischer Hofbuchhändler, Berlin 1913. Zitat S. 212f. * Werner Stackebrandt und Volker Manhenke (Hrsg.): ''Atlas zur Geologie von Brandenburg''. Landesamt für Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe Brandenburg (heute Landesamt für Bergbau, Geologie und Rohstoffe Brandenburg, LBGR) 2002, 2. Aufl., 142 S., 43 Karten, . * Lutz Partenheimer: ''Albrecht der Bär.'' 2. Aufl. Böhlau Verlag, Köln 2003 . {{Coord, 52.3666667, N, 13.3333333, E, type:landmark_region:DE-BE/DE-BB, format=dms, display=title Regions of Brandenburg Geography of Berlin