Wiehengebirge

The Wiehengebirge is a 20 km long, north-west running narrow mountain range, this is the western extension of the east Wiehengebirge. It consists of several wooded ridges, which with a maximum height of 160 m tower over the surrounding landscape by 80 - 100 m. The harrows are separated from each other by deeply incised valleys.

The Wiehengebirge is made up of quartzite and sandstone from the Jurassic period. In the central area on the northern edge are the Kalkrieser heights, which have a low are covered by a thick layer of loess. In the past, oak and beech forests as well as alder and ash forests were widespread. These were largely made up of coniferous forests repressed. The focus is on the cultivation of forests, coniferous forests and mixed forests, on the loess areas of the Kalkrieser Höhen there is also arable farming. protected areas and there are no special functional ecological areas in the Wiehengebirge.

Geography
The mountain range is located in the districts of Osnabrück, Minden-Lübbecke and Herford. The Wiehengebirge stretches in a west-east direction northern part from about Bramsche to the cities of Minden and Porta Westfalica. The Ostend is with the Porta Westfalica and the Wittekinsberg is clearly defined, but the definition for the western end is more difficult.

To the west, the mountains flatten out and develop from a ridge to a chain of hills. Then it goes almost unnoticed into the lowlands. South of Bramsche, the ridge with the Penter Egge rises again to a height of 99 m, but the level of the surrounding country is already reached 2.5 km to the west. West of the waterways Südkanal Osnabrück and Mittellandkanal the 82 m high Larberger Egge builds up and forms the western cornerstone of the mountain range.

To the north is the North German lowland. On the banks of the Weser, opposite Porta Westfalica, are the Weser Mountains, which are the eastern continuation of the Wiehengebirge. The Lipper Bergland is to the southeast and the Ravensberger Hügelland to the south. Southwest in the area of the Tecklenburger Land the northern foothills of the Teutoburg Forest, north-west of the Gehn and the Ankumer Höhe, the Dammer Berge and the Stemweder Berg. North of the northwest end of the mountains lies the Great Moor. Together with the Ankumerhöhe, the Gehn, the Wesergebirge and the Süntel, the Wiehengebirge forms a ridge and is almost closed Forest belt 143 km long.

geology
The Wiehengebirge formed 10 million years ago in the Saxon mountain formation together with the Weserbergland through uplift of the earth's crust. The folded rocks from the Dogger and Malm originated 170 - 140 million years ago as deposits on the seabed. found in the mountains Mainly hard sandstone, called Portasandstein in the Porta Westfalica area. The individual altitudes have several superimposed ones layers up. The ridge layers mostly consist of the very hard and light Wiehengebirge sandstone. On the south side of the Wiehengebirge the hard ones close Heersumer strata (sandstone), Ornatenton strata and the Cornbrash sandstone. Wiehengebirge sandstone and Hersum layers belong to the Upper Jura or Malm, the Cornbrash can be assigned to the Middle Jurassic or Dogger. The mountain range is characterized by many mountains or elevations that line up like a comb. In the central part of the mountain range, the Heidbrink is the highest peak at 320 m.

The eastern Wiehengebirge belongs entirely to North Rhine-Westphalia. The land cover, especially that of the steep slopes, is not very thick and exceedingly filthy rich.Therefore the vegetation is limited to beeches and undemanding grasses, semi-grasses and mosses. The numerous streams have their source in damp spring hollows, first flow down the slopes in V-valleys (Siepen) and then meander through the broader sole valleys.

Tourism
The Wiehengebirge offers tourists numerous sights:

At the east end of the mountains is the Kaiser Wilhelm monument at the Porta Westfalica on the Wittekindsberg Lowlands and German low mountain ranges can be seen. Furthermore, the Moltketurm and the ground monument Wittekindsburg, a prehistoric refugee castle.

Also worth mentioning is the Eggetal, a basin completely surrounded by wooded mountains. Viewed from west to east, e.g. B. the Villages Büscherheide, Eininghausen, Börninghausen and Börninghauser Masch. Near the mountain Nonnenstein between Büscherheide and Rödinghausen there is a small mountain lake (the Green Lake) where the highest waterfall in the Wiehengebirge is located.

The Sonnenbrinkturm, a telecommunications tower with a viewing platform, is located on the Sonnenbrink mountain. The lookout tower rises north-west of Rödinghausen on the Nun's Stone. Between Linner Berg and Kleiner Kellenberg is the natural monument Saurian tracks, here in a former quarry about 150 million to see dinosaur tracks that are years old. There are dinosaur replicas, information boards and a 16 km circular dinosaur trail.

history
The name Wiehengebirge probably comes from an old Saxon word root and means "consecrated mountains". It is also widespread Explanation that Wiehen derives from pasture, meadow or graze. In fact, you can see on old engravings that the Wiehengebirge, for example near Lübbecke still consisted of pasture land at the beginning of the 18th century.

Dinosaurs lived in the Wiehengebirge about 150 million years ago. The archaeological excavation project Schnippenburg near Ostercappeln has a supra-local important fortifications and settlements from the pre-Roman Iron Age (300 to 100 BC) explored. In the Lower Saxon part of the Wiehengebirge, in the find region of Kalkriese near Bramsche-Kalkriese, the Varus battle is said to have taken place in 9 AD