ALBERT

Description: The Murg profile shows a loamy ground moraine as the lowermost Pleistocene layer over gneis. The moraine originated during the furthest thrust of the Alpine glaciers in the direction of the Black Forest, and has been placed since 1909 (according to the work of Penck and Brückner) in the Riss glacial stage. Overlying the moraine are pollenbearing peat bog and pond deposits. The pollen indicate, in the deepest layers, a plant community that might still be possible under present climatic conditions. In the higher layers, the trees having affinities to warm conditions disappear. The composite diagram (pollen spectrum) indicates the end phase of an interglacial stage. Over these sediments lie 6—10 m of loess and loess-loam deposits. A thick loam layer, averaging 2.50 m in width, which contains more or less distinct soil horizons, lies between aeolian loess, which always represents a cold period. It can thus be proved that at least a part of these substrata originated in place. Since this loam horizon also represents a warm phase, the deposits of two warm periods overlie the Riss moraine in the Murg profile. Remains of elephants, giant stags, and bison permit comparison of the Murg stratigraphic sequence with a portion of the profile at Achenheim near Strassburg. Hereby is shown that merely the warm period, between the moraine formation and the lowest loess at Murg, can correspond to layers at Achenheim which have yielded the last ancient elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus Falc.). These are approximately of the same age as the travertine at Ehringsdorf The pollen-bearing sectionat Murg might then probably be included in the time of formation of the upper travertine at Ehringsdorf.

Description: Closer investigations of soil profiles developed out of high flood loams of the Lower Terrace revealed that their classification as „Parabraunerde" (grey-brown podsolic soils) is not correct. It was found that they consist of layered sediments, and having been exposed to strong hydromorphic influences they show an alteration to terrestrial soils. For that great soil group the name "Altvega" is proposed. Synsedimentary clay depositions and structure formations in those soils reduce the indicative value of the clay migration.

Description: The spots as described above and represented by some pictures are caused by post-sedimentary destruction of humus in the rhizosphere. They are to be found in humic material of any stratigraphical position whatever within the upper pleistocene and holocene, which is to say that they are not limited to special types of soil.

Description: The tracks shown in this paper are found in varved clavs of Pleistocene age at Malkwitz near Malente/Holstein (N-Germany) (fig. 1-4). They appear only in summer-layers of these varved clays. The tracks of fig. 1 (1-4), (8), (9) will be made by animals (e. g. insects or larvae), but those of fig. 1 (5-7) are probablv produced inorganically (twigs etc.. driven through shallow water). In comparison with these marks fig. 5 shows tracks, which are described by other authors from different places in Central-Europe. It is verv difficult to find the organisme responsible for these marks, because nobody has found anv fossil hitherto, which could have made the marks when it lived in these little perlglaclal lakes. On the other hand these lakes are situated in a climatic zone giving an environment with extreme conditions. It is possible that the originators of these tracks have not lived permanently in the lakes. This would be a form of life such as that of insect larvae. The form and construction of these marks is dependent on the animal, its anatomy, its way of life etc., but also on the region in which it lives. The grade of compaction, the water content of the sediment and other physical and chemical conditions are also very important.

Description: Sowohl im Tal des Regen nächst seiner Einmündung in die Donau bei Regensburg wie im unteren Maintal bei Marktheidenfeld sind mächtige altquartäre Talverschüttungen aufgeschlossen. Sie lassen sich jeweils in eine ältere Akkumulationsphase, eine nachfolgende Auephase und in eine abschließende jüngere Akkumulationsphase aufgliedern. Einer im Maintal nachfolgenden Erosionsperiode entspricht bei Regensburg ein extremer Pseudogley. Darüber folgen Gehängeablagerungen und schließlich Löß unterschiedlicher Fazies mit drei zwischengeschalteten interglazialen Parabraunerden. Damit liegt in beiden Talsystemen die große Verschüttungsperiode vor der viertletzten Eiszeit. Auch die der Jüngeren Steppenzeit zugeordnete Säugetierfauna von Randersacker gehört in die (jüngere?) Verschüttungsphase. Die Ursache der offensichtlich nicht allein auf das untere Main-und Neckartal beschränkten Talverschüttung wird in einer allgemeinen Hebungstendenz der Mittelgebirge vor der Günzeiszeit vermutet.

Description: The most important soils of Scandinavia are compared with those of Germany. In Scandinavia the formation of soil can be traced back from the presence (at the Svartisen) until some 10 000 years ago, and this may be based as well on wet as on dry soils. A special feature in Skandinavia is a very soft Brown Earth. Very much the same soil can be found in Germany, but only on lateglacial sediments of the late Dryas-age. Both are of almost the same age. They are alike in their character of sediment and content of carbonate. Therefore this type may probably be considered as the first important formation of soils under wood on sandy grounds in Germany.

Description: In the lower Blies valley the author discovered a periglacial mudflow consisting of white marl and fragments of limestone, surmounted by 25-30 cm river-sand belonging to a Riß-terrace. The surface of these deposits was covered by fossil ice-wedges. The changes in the phyto-sociological structure of the vegetation cover permitted to fix the exact extension of the periglacial mudflow.

Description: A method for pollenanalytical investigations of loesses is described. If several sources of error are duely taken into consideration, this method is successful in the reconstruction of the vegetation history of those phases of pleniglacial times, during which the thick loess layers were accumulated. The method can be employed in pollenanalytical investigations of weathered and unweathered loesses, with the exception of redeposited loesses. It can be shown that the famous sequence of fossil soils at Oberfellabrunn, known as the soils of the "Fellabrunner Komplex" („Stillfried A"), which is sometimes held to be the equivalent of the "Göttweig Interstadial", must be divided into the brown loamy soil at the base of the sequence, which was formed during the Eemian Interglacial, and into the younger humic layers, which developed during the Interstadials of Amersfoort and Brørup. The amelioration of climate during the "Stillfried B-Interstadial" (perhaps equivalent of the "Paudorf Interstadial"?) was strong enough to enable local subalpine conifer forests and riverine broad-leaved forests to spread along the rivers and other suitable places within the still dominant steppe formations on the drier loess plateaus. The loess layers of the Riss and Würm glaciations have been accumulated within the eastern Dart of Niederösterreich in different steppe communities, which can be described at best as belonging to the Gramineae steppe formation, rich in herbaceous plants. Sometimes there occurred plants of recent tundra-communities in the loess steppe: but real tundras did not exist at that time in Niederösterreich. This holds true most of all for the last period of loess accumulation after the Stillfried B-Interstadial. When being compared with pollen spectra of surface samples of recent tundra, steppe and semidesert plant communities, it becomes evident, that the open vegetation, thriving during the last glaciation in vast regions of Northern Eurasia cannot be described in terms of modern plant associations.

Description: Wie früher dargelegt (K. Brunnacker 1956), sollen durch die Untersuchung von Höhlensedimenten in erster Linie folgende Probleme einer Klärung näher gebracht werden: Die Unterscheidung von warm- und kaltklimatischen Sedimenten (z. B. Sinter-Frostschutt) steht im Vordergrund der gesamten Untersuchungen. Hierbei kann auf den Grundvorstellungen von R. Lais (1941) aufgebaut werden. Doch ist dabei weiter von Bedeutung, ob es sich um dem (infolge Abwitterung laufend zurückweichenden) Eingang nahe Ablagerungen handelt, oder ob Material des Höhleninneren vorliegt. Ferner ist zu klären, ob autochthones oder infolge Einwehung bzw. Einschwemmung allochthones Material den Gesteinskörper aufbaut oder daran beteiligt ist. Schließlich sind nachträgliche Veränderungen im Sediment infolge pedogener Vorgänge einschließlich der spezifischen Art der Gesteinsverwitterung und ferner die durch evtl. auch nur kurzstreckige Umlagerung am Höhlenboden bedingten Schichtlücken bzw. -Verdoppelungen zu erfassen. Diese Fragen allein durch eine laboratoriumsmäßige Auswertung der Sedimentproben klären zu wollen ist nicht sinnvoll; es kommt vielmehr auf eine Verknüpfung der hierbei gemachten Befunde mit den am Aufschluß möglichen Beobachtungen an.

Description: Durch Bohrungen und Baugrubenaufschlüsse wurden im Bereich der Grone-Niederung im südlichen Leinetalgraben besonders vielgestaltige spätpleistozäne und holozäne Bildungen erschlossen. Durch Korrelation zahlreicher Flachbohrprofile über eine Distanz von 2,5 km wird die relative Alterstellung dieser Schichtglieder geklärt und durch Anschluß an die Ablagerungen der Leine-Niederung mit diesen in Parallele gesetzt (Abb. 2). Die Entstehung relativ mächtiger Torf- und Kalksinterlagen im Südwesten des Beobachtungsbereichs ist vermutlich durch Salzablaugung im Untergrund begünstigt worden.