Stolpen Basalt Monument

Nice memorial. Once was here 25million ago. Years ago a volcano brought out the basalt.

The term "basalt" was first used in 1546 by the famous Saxon scholar and founder of modern mining science Gregorius Agricola. This makes the Stolpener Burgberg the typoslocality of all basalts worldwide.

The Stolpen Basalt is a geological natural monument of outstanding importance. It also shapes the external appearance of the castle and many of the town's buildings, in which it was used as a building stone. The basalt is an extremely hard, tough, and black natural stone that formed in Stolpen 25 million years ago. At that time, the Saxon-North Bohemian region was one of the most geologically active areas in Europe. Beneath present-day Stolpen, a crack in the Earth's crust formed a vent through which ash, lava, and lava surged to the Earth's surface. This created an ejecta cone several hundred meters high. This formed a "lid" that the incoming basaltic magma could not penetrate. It stagnated and slowly cooled in the vent, forming the characteristic columns. burg-stolpen.org/de/burg-stolpen/stolpener-basalt/#:~:text=Der%20Stolpener%20Basalt%20ist%20ein,Stolpen%20ist%20eine%20baulic