Stappitzer See
The Stappitzer Lake is a lake in Carinthia Seebachtal in the outer zone of the Hohe Tauern National Park in the municipality of Mallnitz. The lake lies at an altitude of 1273 m above sea level. A.
- 2.1 Dam project Stappitzer lake
- 2.2 Climate and vegetation Archive
- 3.1 Fauna
- 3.2 Protection Status
Geography
Formation
The Stappitzer lake was formed at the end of the last ice age. With the retreat of the glaciers and the associated decline of the ice pressure led to landslides from the flanks. Here in the valley Mallnitzer made a huge landslide from Auernig ( 2130 m), form the remains of at Rabisch below Mallnitz a significant escarpment, the natural catch bar, behind which is up to 10 km long lake began to dam. The lake reached far into the Seebachtal and was replenished over time with the attachment of Seebach and its tributaries, with block work and mudflow material. This process is also the reason for the largely flat terrain in the district of Mallnitz.
The Stappitzer lake is the remnant of this silting process. Alluvial fan of the side streams of Seebach have built just below a further barrier. Behind this, the lake has been dammed.
In the area of the lake sediments have built it in a thickness of up to 250 meters.
History
Dam project Stappitzer lake
In the 1970s, a storage power station was planned by the then Austrian Draukraftwerken in Seebachtal. In the course of geological preliminary studies for the dam in 1979 /81 led four sample holes in the sediments of the lake bottom in the area of Stappitzer lake. The power plant project failed as a result the resistance of a citizens' initiative and the cores were asked for geological and palynological investigations.
Climate and vegetation Archive
The original four holes ranged up to a depth of up to 96 meters and were supplemented by a fifth hole at 160 meters depth in the fall of 1999. The valley glacier moraine of the Würm glaciation was reached, but not the grown rock. The cores ranging up to 17,000 years back into the past. By Pollenstratigraphie the climatic processes could be interpreted since then. They show the sequence of warm periods and cold periods of the late Ice Age. So 60 plant species, including first flowering plants are detectable already in the lowest 17,000 -year-old layers. At the time of the Drau glacier was already disintegrating, in the valley was a local valley glaciers. Overall, the climatic conditions at that time were favorable for the spread of shrub and tree -like shrubs, despite strong fluctuations ( " Stappitzer climate variability ").
In the extreme cold period before 15000-12000 years, the wood pollen disappeared in favor of grass and weed pollen, before again spreading birch, dwarf pine and green alder with the warm phase of pre 12000-11000 years. Years ago, about 9,800 of tree pollen proportion rose sharply, spruce, elm, hazel and gray alder immigrated to the Seebach valley, dense gray alders dominated. At the height of the post-glacial warm period, between 6,700 and 5,000 years ago today, reached the annual mean temperatures 1-2 ° C, the summer mean temperatures 2-3 ° C higher than today.
Ecology
Fauna
On Stappitzer lake there is no breeding population of Annex I bird species. The lake serves as a resting place for migratory birds but their crossing of the Alps, such as the Black-throated Diver (Gavia arctica) or the Yellow Wagtail ( Motacilla flava).
The breeding places of the dwarf diver ( Tachybaptus ruficollis ) on the lake are among the highest in Austria. For flight Raiders of the Seebach valley, such as the Alpine Swift (Apus melba ) and the Eurasian Crag Martin ( Ptyonoprogne rupestris ), the lake and the surrounding silt zone is an important feeding area.
Protection status
In April 1986, the Stappitzer lake and its surroundings was declared a natural monument and in March 2008 the European nature reserve " Stappitzer lake and the surrounding area ."
Be cited as worthy of protection under the Birds Directive Annex I of the Black-throated Diver (Gavia arctica), the hazel grouse ( Bonasa bonasia ), the eagle owl (Bubo bubo), the pygmy owl ( Glaucidium passerinum ), the boreal owl ( Aegolius funereus ), the black woodpecker (Dryocopus martius ), the gray-headed woodpecker (Picus canus), the three-toed woodpecker ( Picoides tridactylus ), the Bluethroat (Luscinia svecica ) and the Red-backed Shrike (Lanius collurio ).
Species of the Habitats Directive Annexes II and IV in the area are the Koppe ( Cottus gobio), and yellow-bellied toad (Bombina variegata ).