Geoheritage in the Minett UNESCO Biosphere (Southern Luxembourg): Inventory, Evaluation, and Conservation Aspects of Representative Geosites

Abstract The southwestern part of Luxembourg, known as Minett in the local language use, exposes an exceptionally high diversity of marine near-shore sediment rocks from the Early to Middle Jurassic, owing to its proximal position at the north-eastern margins of the Paris Basin. The iconic Minette ironstone formation is known as the worldwide largest oolitic ironstone deposit from the last 500 my and the abandoned open cast mines are nowadays protected sites with a high biodiversity, intrinsically linked to geodiversity. The schistes bitumineux unit, a lateral equivalent of the well-known Posi... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Weis, Robert
Dokumenttyp: Artikel
Erscheinungsdatum: 2022
Reihe/Periodikum: Geoheritage ; volume 14, issue 1 ; ISSN 1867-2477 1867-2485
Verlag/Hrsg.: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Schlagwörter: Earth and Planetary Sciences (miscellaneous) / Nature and Landscape Conservation / Geography / Planning and Development
Sprache: Englisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-26740085
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
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Link(s) : http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12371-022-00658-z

Abstract The southwestern part of Luxembourg, known as Minett in the local language use, exposes an exceptionally high diversity of marine near-shore sediment rocks from the Early to Middle Jurassic, owing to its proximal position at the north-eastern margins of the Paris Basin. The iconic Minette ironstone formation is known as the worldwide largest oolitic ironstone deposit from the last 500 my and the abandoned open cast mines are nowadays protected sites with a high biodiversity, intrinsically linked to geodiversity. The schistes bitumineux unit, a lateral equivalent of the well-known Posidonienschiefer of the Holzmaden region (South Germany), is frequently studied for its exceptionally preserved fossils of marine vertebrates, cephalopods, and insect remains, deserving its status as a Fossil-Lagerstätte of international relevance. Of regional importance are the Rumelange limestones, with coral patch-reef paleo-environments. The geomorphological main feature of the region is the Cuesta of the Middle Jurassic (‘Dogger-Schichtstufe’), with several outliers (‘Zeugenberge’) that represent widely visible landmarks in the landscape. In this paper, 16 geosites, representative of the geological, palaeontological, geomorphological, and hydrogeological heritage in the Minett UNESCO biosphere, are presented and evaluated according to scientific, educational, and geotouristic criteria.