Landscape walk through the "volcanic village" of Steffeln to the "Steffelberg" educational and experimental volcano

The volcanic cone of the Steffelberg originally had a summit height of 609 meters above sea level. The mining of slag in the last century led to the lowering of the mountain peak by 60 meters and created a deep hole in the landscape. The former eruption layers were exposed and visitors can look into the crater and see the volcanic processes. Large areas of slaggy lapilli and ash can be seen inside. Very finely crushed and layered material is also clearly visible at the edge of the path. Then again, there are areas where coarser material has already been partially redeposited on top of the normal layers. A special feature of the Steffelnkopf are two intersecting basalt veins in the vent area. After the volcanic material had been used commercially and removed, the volcano was valorized for tourism. The old eruption layers were uncovered, an artificial cinder cone (with original cinder cone material) was heaped up and an artificial maar was created (also with original maar sediment material). A tour of the site was then created with 15 information stations. In order to preserve the interesting geological outcrops in the volcano garden and to prevent the site from being completely overgrown by vegetation, an ecological grazing program has been set up.