Palsen Moor Ponds (Hohes Venn-Eifel Nature Park)

Palsas are very similar to pingos in their morphology and origin, but significantly smaller than pingos with heights between about 1 and 10 meters and lengths between about 15 and 150 meters.

This picture shows a so-called Palsen.

The palsen or pingos in the High Fens were formed around 10,000 to 11,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age. When the ground froze deep down during the cold winters of the Ice Age, the wet ground expanded and frost mounds developed. Over the years these mounds grew and the soil material that was on top slid down the sides of the mounds and over time formed a ring-shaped wall around the mound of frost. With the end of the ice age, the ice melted, the frost mound sagged and the wall was preserved. The water in the middle is called bog scour or bog eye.
Source: euregio-im-bild.de/fotos/palsen-im-brackvenn-bei-m-tzenich.html

Thufurs are “round to oval, vegetation-covered hilltops with a core rich in fine material.” (Baumhauer et. al. 2017, p. 122)
They can be seen in the landscape as humps of fine earth with a diameter of 0.5 to 2 meters and a height of 0.5 to 1 meter. Unlike pingos and palsas, their occurrence is not linked to permafrost, since they can already form during seasonal frost.
Source: geohilfe.de/physische-geographie/geomorphologie/periglaziale-formung/periglaziale-formen-eiskeile-pingos-palsas-und-thufure

Very good footbridge, which is probably also suitable for wheelchairs due to its width.

PalsenA special feature of the Eifel and the High Fens is the occurrence of palsy structures. These are circular or elongated depressions, which were caused by thawing of Eislinsen. In the weathering rind, ice crystals accumulated in the last glacial period, which in time grew into large ice lentils. The earth above the lenses continued to bulge, leaving a mound above each lens. Similar phenomena can still be found to a great extent in the Arctic regions or to a lesser extent in the humpback meadows in Iceland or in the Alps. The uppermost layers of the Eislinsen thawed by the warming at the turn of the Pleistocene to the Holocene. The earth that covered the lenses slid sideways so that the ice became free and could melt completely. In this way, round or oval depressions were created, the palses, which were surrounded by an adumbrium and filled with water. These naturally formed waters silted up over time, and fens formed within the ring-shaped earth wall. The milieu in these waters was mostly acidic, as the weathering of the liberated Cambrian Revin layers released sulfuric acid. So good conditions for the growth of peat mosses and thus for a bog vegetation, which replaced the fens.Today in the Eifel, e.g. in Mützenicher Venn, as well as in the Hohe Venn still to find some of these structures. In the interior of the Palsen is still often a moor vegetation with peat mosses (Sphagnum sp., Especially S. paillosum and S. fallax), sundew (Droserea rotundifolia), rosemary heath (Andromeda polifolia) and the bog berry (Vaccinium oxycoccus). In contrast, plants that grow in arid areas of raised bogs grow on the mound. This includes e.g. the heather (Calluna vulgaris). The pals are especially beautiful in the Brackvenn and in the Hatsicher Venn. Brackvenn and Hatsicher Venn lie almost directly next to each other and can be combined well.