Burgstein (Dollnstein)

The towering stone castle is part of a rock massif in the Upper Bavarian district of Eichstätt on the northern edge of the Upper Altmühltal at Doll stone against the boys Rother mill in nature Altmühltal.

Formation

At the time of the "white law " ( = Malm ) of southern Germany by a shallow subtropical shelf sea was covered. In this shallow sea shallow platforms alternated with coarse calcification and deep trays with fine-grained lime deposits. The 45 -meter-high stone castle consists mainly of the massive platform calcification with some interspersed sponge reefs that grew on the slopes of the platforms. While the limestone of the wells were heavily compacted by overlying rock layers over time, resisted the reef and Plattformkalke the rock pressure and remained as tablets and more powerful blocks. The erosion groomed these tougher games out preferred. Especially at the impingement slopes of the rivers - in this case, the glacial ancient Danube - this led to rock waivers.

Temporal classification

The limestones of the Malm formed about 135-154 million years ago. Prior to about 5 million years ago, the ancient Danube began to cut and therefore herauszupräparieren the rocks. This work was done, so to speak, than the ancient Danube its course further moved during the crack - ice age about 150,000 years ago in the south to what is now Schutteral and eventually to the edge of the Alps in their current bed.

Geotop

The stone castle is recognized by the Bavarian State Office for Environment as Geotop 176R006. The Geotop also one of the 100 Most Beautiful geotopes Bavaria. See also the list of geological sites in the district of Eichstätt.

Conservation

The stone castle is located in the 60 acre nature reserve Miihlberg Leite. In addition to the dominant dolomite rocks here are semi-arid grassland as a former sheep pastures with juniper vegetation, dry grasslands found on rocky parts, hedges, shrub islands and on the edge of deciduous and mixed forests - a succession of different plant communities in natural succession and sometimes with botanical rarities. Also on the rock heads themselves, there are flourishing life, such as the White Stonecrop, which serves the rare Apollo as a forage crop. From this abundance of different habitat types of ecological value results of this natural reserve. The rock climbers a nationally popular, not always harmless target ( rockfall ). The difficulty of the climbing routes ranging from III to IX with paying excessive focus (26 routes ) from VI to VIII