The Scientist

Around Lindlar, sandstone that is approximately 390 million years old is extracted. It occurs in various layers and hardnesses in the Bergisches Land. Its colour varies between grey-blue, grey-green and grey-brown tones. The term “Grauwacke”, commonly used today, is much younger: it only became a trade term about 250 years ago.

During the Middle Devonian period, when the Bergische Grauwacke was formed, Lindlar was situated on the edge of a shallow subtropical sea. Large landmasses lay to the north and west, with a few smaller islands to the south. Rivers continuously brought sandy sediments into the sea, which sank to the bottom and solidified over millions of years under the pressure of new deposits. Towards the end of the Devonian period, this sandstone was folded by the movement of tectonic plates. From the tropical sea, an alpine mountain range emerged. Over hundreds of millions of years, weathering and erosion shaped the several-thousand-metre-high peaks into the medium-sized mountains that form the landscape today.

During the Middle Devonian period, there were only a few wingless insects, spiders and mites on land. It was only towards the end of this era that amphibians gradually conquered the new habitat. In the water of the tropical sea there were algae and corals, as well as clams, snails and the ancestors of our present-day fish. Their remains are repeatedly found as impressive fossils in the Bergische Grauwacke.

Lindlar’s quarries have long attracted researchers from all over the world. In the 1960s, Hans-Joachim Schweizer, a professor of paleontology at the University of Bonn, examined fossilised plant remains here. In doing so, he discovered the spores of a species previously unknown at that time. It was named Acinosporites lindlarensis, in reference to the location of its discovery.

In 2008, the specialist press reported an archaeological sensation: the renowned geologist Peter Giesen from Wuppertal had uncovered a two-and-a-half-metre-long sandstone block in a quarry at Brungerst with two completely embedded specimens of Calamophyton primaevum. Presumably, a flood buried the up to three-metre-high ancient ferns under layers of sand and mud, leading to their petrification. Lindlar is thus home to the oldest forest in the world: 390 million years old!

To this day, impressive fossils are found in the Bergische Grauwacke. Often they are crinoids, also known as sea lilies. During the Middle Devonian, they were widespread in the world’s oceans. Tropical storms dislodged these creatures anchored to the seabed by a stalk, breaking them in the surf, and embedding them into the accumulating layers of sand. It was in this process that their fossilisation took place.

However, in the Bergisches Land, not only Grauwacke was mined: “Lindlar marble” referred to polished and finished limestone. Stonemasons crafted altar slabs, baptismal fonts and holy water basins from these stones. In addition, the impressive chimneys of the castles Ehreshoven near Engelskirchen, Georghausen near Lindlar, and Gimborn near Marienheide were created from artistically processed materials.