Basaltsteinbruch Schimmerich
Brief description
At Schimmerich, a small viewing point provides a glimpse of the quiet quarrying lake. Today, the nature reserve makes it difficult to imagine that basalt for dykes in the Netherlands and gravel for road construction was once extracted here. Today, numerous rare amphibian species can be found here, such as the midwife toad and the yellow-bellied toad.
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Detailed description
From basalt quarrying to biotope
Where once there was the noisy bustle of basalt mining, there is now a natural oasis: the quarry in today's ‘Schimmerich’ nature reserve was already being utilised in 1898. From 1913, the basalt deposit was worked by the local company Blecker & Eckhardt from both the Derschen and Friedewald sides.
The global economic crisis then brought a temporary end to mining, although the basalt here was of excellent quality. After that, basalt mining on the Derschen side was suspended for almost 30 years.
In the mid-1950s, the entrepreneur Robert Weid resumed work in a new quarry and mainly quarried hydraulic engineering stone for dykes in the Netherlands.
Quarrying ended there in 1960, but was revived on the Friedewald side by the Brandt company. The operation was later taken over by Eiserfelder Steinwerke and continued until 1974. Around 500 tonnes of basalt were extracted every day and transported to the crushing plant on the road from Friedewald to Daaden using two large dump trucks. There, the rubble was crushed into gravel, loaded and then mainly used for road construction.
The crushing plants were blown up in 1980. Remains of the buildings and foundations of the plant can still be seen on today's Mudersbach site.
After the end of mining, the quarry was to be completely renaturalised by the operator. However, the steep face of the residual open-cast mining hole could not be bevelled due to the border between Derschen and Friedewald. As a result, it was preserved and a small lake formed over time, which quickly became a refuge for rare amphibian species and numerous other fauna and flora. The midwife toad and yellow-bellied toad are at home here.
The area around the former quarry was designated a nature reserve with the name ‘Schimmerich’ in a statutory order dated 8 December 1980. It covers more than 24 hectares.
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Contact and directions
Bahnhofstraße 4
57567 Daaden