The geology of the surrounding landscape.

View from the Aar­nescht to the “Grünewald”.

The region of Nieder­an­ven is spe­cif­ic for an abrupt change of the under­ground geo­log­i­cal fea­ture. This pas­sage from the Lux­em­bourg Sand­stone lay­er to the Keu­per lay­er can be seen eas­i­ly on the sur­face and is respon­si­ble for the spe­cial fea­tures of the site.

The Aar­nescht in the mid­dle of the hilly landscape.

The Lux­em­bourg Sand­stone lay­er (li2) forms a table­land cov­ered by a nat­ur­al grown beech grove. On the east side; the table­land is lim­it­ed by the tran­si­tion point of the Keu­per lay­er (km3), on whose ground is extend­ing a wide open hilly land­scape, cul­ti­vat­ed since ever.

The geology of the Aarnescht

Geo­log­i­cal lay­ers:
li2: Lux­em­burg­er Sand­stone
ku: Low­er Keu­per
li1: Marls-Lay­ers
mo2: Cer­atites-Lay­ers
ko2: Rhaet­ian
mo1: Crinoidea-Lay­ers
km3: Upper Tri­as­sic
mm: Gyp­site
km2: Reed sand­stone
km1: Pseudo­mor­pho­senke­u­per

The geo­log­i­cal pro­file of the Aar­nescht shows that the under­ground is near­ly com­plete­ly com­posed by stony marl sed­i­ments, rocks were formed in the Meso­zoic time, when the dinosaurs were still there (approx­i­mate­ly 200 mil­lions of years ago). Dur­ing these years dif­fer­ent lay­ers were added to the marl sed­i­ment lay­er as for exam­ple the red rhet­ian marl (ko2(), the grey psilo­ceras planor­bis (li1) and the yel­low Lux­em­bourg Sand­stone lay­er (li2). On the north side of the Aar­nescht these lay­ers are still recov­er­ing and pro­tect­ing the marl sed­i­ments from the nat­ur­al ero­sion. As for the rest of the Aar­nescht, wind and rain did erode the thick lay­ers with the years and the com­pact marl sed­i­ments are exposed on the sur­face again.

Compact marl sediments

The com­pact marl sed­i­ments are com­posed by thick clay rocks and brake rapid­ly into sharp frag­ments. Then they can eas­i­ly been blown away by the wind and waters and laid down on oth­er places.

Dur­ing a hik­ing tour over the Aar­nescht you can find those bare open grounds, erod­ed over the time. You recog­nise them by their grey colour, typ­i­cal for com­pact marl sediments.