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A revised sedimentological model for the late Oligocene crater lake Enspel (Enspel Formation, Westerwald Mountains, Germany)

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Abstract

New longitudinal profiles through the upper Oligocene Enspel Formation have been constructed based on previously published data and unpublished drilling records. The lithofacies is reinterpreted. The Enspel Formation represents deposits of a deep crater lake, Lake Enspel. The crater rim had steep inner slopes that remained intact until the end of deposition. There was no fluvial input. Alluvial inputs (mud flows) were derived from gullies on the crater’s inner rim, with some of these sediments deposited temporarily in alluvial fans. Thin subaerial pyroclastics from nearby volcanic eruptions also accumulated. Crater floor subsidence, episodic heavy rains, and earthquakes triggered flank collapses and slides on the alluvial fan slopes and led to the creation of thick debrites on the lake bottom. These debris flows are partly correlatable over the entire profundal zone. A new sedimentological–limnological cross-section through the Stöffel crater is presented here, and the levels of the lake water and groundwater and the altitudes of the surrounding landscape are given.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Peter Winters and Joachim Larcher/Basalt-Actien-Gesellschaft, Linz for their permission to use unpublished drilling data. Gudrun Radtke/Hessisches Landesamt für Umwelt und Geologie, Wiesbaden is acknowledged for providing field data. J.E. Hogan, Munich translated parts of the original German manuscript. Luke Parry, Bristol, and Krister T. Smith, Frankfurt kindly improved the English. Furthermore we like to thank the editor-in-chief Peter Königshof, Dieter Nesbor/Hessisches Landesamt für Umwelt und Geologie, Wiesbaden, and an anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments. Special thanks go to Herbert Lutz/Naturhistorisches Museum Mainz for intensive discussions on our lake model.

Remarks on the availability of drill logs and cited theses

The unpublished drilling records, reports and diplomas and PhD theses, as well as the studied cores M1, M2, M3, M3a, M4 and M5, are stored at the Generaldirektion Kulturelles Erbe/Direktion Landesarchäologie/Referat Erdgeschichte, Mainz and are available on request.

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  1. Direktion Landesarchäologie, Referat Erdgeschichte, Generaldirektion Kulturelles Erbe Rheinland-Pfalz, Große Langgasse 29, 55116, Mainz, Germany

    Thomas Schindler & Michael Wuttke

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  1. Thomas Schindler
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  2. Michael Wuttke
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Correspondence to Thomas Schindler.

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This article is a contribution to the special issue “The Fossil-Lagerstätte Enspel - reconstructing the palaeoenvironment with new data on fossils and geology”

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Schindler, T., Wuttke, M. A revised sedimentological model for the late Oligocene crater lake Enspel (Enspel Formation, Westerwald Mountains, Germany). Palaeobio Palaeoenv 95, 5–16 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12549-014-0178-4

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