Forschungszentrum Landschaftsentwicklung und Bergbaulandschaften (FZLB)
This study outlines the opportunities for geoarchaeological research in active opencast lignite mines in southern Brandenburg (Germany). Studies on extensive outcrops that address both archaeology and soil geomorphology, combined with a geographical information system (GIS) approach, provide unique insights into human-induced environmental changes in Lower Lusatia and generally improve our understanding of landscape dynamics. We present the
most recent results from three case studies and review important findings from the last several years. Studies conducted in opencast mines of Cottbus-Nord and Jänschwalde focus on (i) Late Quaternary geomorphodynamics and soil development and (ii) past land use and the legacy of agriculture and woodland use. Our results are similar to those in other regions in Central Europe, but we also observe regional differences caused by the local setting, e.g. intensification of soil erosion coinciding with the expansion of farming of cultivated lands in the Slavic Middle Ages. Our research reveals the largest archaeologically investigated area of historical charcoal production in the Northern European Lowland (NEL). We are clearly only beginning to understand the massive dimensions of charcoal production in the region.
At the former Diplomat Mine near Forestburg, Alberta, Canada we find a diverse soil landscape which can help to conceptualize factors and processes controlling initial pedogenesis and soil distribution on very young landforms in prairie environments. Due to differing reclamation practices in the 1950s and landslides occurring after spoil dumping, four areas can be distinguished by GoogleMaps/LiDAR evaluation and onsite field survey: (i) not-mined, (ii) stock piled and unreclaimed, (iii) stock piled and reclaimed and (iv) affected by post-mining geomorphodynamics and quasi-natural redeposition. The parent material for areas (ii) to (iv) was initially dumped by spreaders but only (ii) didn’t undergo further change. Landscape (iii) has seen levelling of the piles by heavy machinery. Features of landscape (iv) are formed by reshaping the originally dumped and levelled structures. This last landscape unit marks the rim of
the former mine adjacent to the river valley. In practice, mining activities formed new valley slopes. In contrast
to the naturally developed slopes the mine slopes were less stable. Vegetation, which could have hindered slope
wash erosion, was missing after dumping the spoil slopes. Slopes were very steep (or practically undercut) and
therefore, substrates were naturally re-located by mass movements such as sliding and slumping. Characteristic
sliding and slumping structures can be identified in the close-ups of the LiDAR images. Both processes, mass movement and slope wash erosion, may have overlapped. Landscape (ii) is the most contrasting one. Dumped stock piles formed elongated, curved and steep ridges. These landforms do not have a natural analogue but clearly show their technological origin. Most interesting are differences in vegetation. South and southwest facing slopes are covered with grassland whereas north and northeast facing slopes are covered with aspen trees. Some of the ditches are filled with water and form small elongated ponds. The characteristic geomorphology of the prairie can be found in landscape (i). Distinct differences are found in properties and types of soils in these four landscapes. Natural soils and pile soils characteristically differ in parent material and soil horizons. No information is gathered yet for the reclaimed soils and the landslides soils due to prohibited access. However, based on what we find at the former Diplomat Mine we can conclude that distribution, development and properties of unreclaimed soils in historical open cast mines in Alberta are primarily controlled by parent material and topography. The geomorphological set-up is dominating the trajectory of vegetation development and post-mining geomorphodynamics. Contrasting slope aspects determine micro climatic conditions and lead to different vegetation types. This has likely had an effect on soil development and soil properties (especially carbon stocks). Further studies will be conducted to quantify these differing soil properties to refine this conceptual model of initial pedogenesis and soil distribution on very young landforms in the prairie landscapes.
Archaeological excavations have revealed more than thousand charcoal kiln remains (CKRs) in the prefield of
the active opencast lignite mine Jänschwalde, situated about 150 km SE of Berlin (SE Brandenburg, Germany).
The charcoal was mainly produced for the ironwork Peitz nearby, which operated from the 16th to the mid-19th
centuries. In a first approach, to estimate the dimension of the charcoal production, CKRs were mapped on
shaded-relief maps (SRMs) derived from high-resolution LiDAR data (Raab et al. 2015). Subsequently, for a selected test area, identified CKRs on the SRMs were compared with archaeologically excavated CKRs in the
field. This survey showed a considerably number of falsely detected sites. Therefore, the data was critically
re-evaluated using additional relief visualisations. Further, we extended the CKR mapping to areas which are not
archaeologically investigated. The study area, the former royal forest district Tauer, consists of two separate areas: the Tauersche Heide (c. 96 km2 area) N of Peitz and the area Jänschwalde (c. 32 km2 area) NE of Peitz. The study area is characterized by a flat topography. Different former and current anthropogenic uses (e.g., military training, solar power plant, forestry measures) have affected the study area, resulting in extensive disturbances of the terrain surface. The revised CKR abundance in the study area Jänschwalde was considerably smaller than the numbers produced by our first approach. Further, the CKR mapping revealed, that a total record of the CKRs is not possible for various reasons. Despite these limitations, a solid database can be provided for a much larger area than before. Basic statistic parameters of the CKR diameters and all comparative statistical tests were calculated using SPSS. To detect underlying spatial relationships in the CKR site distribution, we applied the Getis-Ord Gi* statistic, a method to test for local spatial autocorrelation between neighbouring sites. The test is available as part of the ArcGis 10.1 spatial statistics toolbox. The outcomes are discussed in consideration of our archaeological, archival and dendrochronological research results.
Various sources provide information about land use history and landscape transformation. For a variety of reasons, the quality of information differs and is often discontinuous or incomplete. In this interdisciplinary study we take advantage of comprehensive archaeological data gathered by large-scale excavations that were necessary because of opencast lignite mining in Lusatia, Brandenburg, Germany. By using a GIS we integrate these archaeological findings with results from archival and literature studies, from historical maps, from landforms and soils as well as from analyses of shaded-relief maps derived from up-to-date LiDAR data. The long-term aim is to develop a palaeoenvironmental model and thus to reconstruct landscape changes caused by human activities. The focus of the study is the Peitz ironwork in SE Brandenburg, which was a large consumer of commodities for about 300 years. During the time it operated, extensive transformations are supposed to have affected the landscape in the vicinity because of wood consumption and especially charcoal production. Digital datasets about forested areas for different timespans reconstructed from historical maps were made available. In combination with dendrochronological dating of charred trees, the spatiotemporal dimension of charcoal kilns was determined. Also, sites of former bog iron ore mining could be identified. Moreover, the different sources contain further information about other forms of land uses such as agriculture, pastoralism and even viticulture. In conclusion we can highlight that the mosaic of past land use systems is different from the modern structure but that major changes in the forests have been retained.
The constructed Hühnerwasser (“Chicken Creek”) catchment is an ecohydrological system in an initial state of development. The catchment with an area of 6 ha was built up from quaternary sediments in the post-mining landscape of Lusatia in Eastern Germany and serves as a critical zone observatory for detecting ecosystem transition. The soil substrate is characterized as sands to loamy sands with low carbonate contents but significant amounts of gypsum in the sediments of the catchment. The catchment undergoes a strong transition from an abiotic system in the initial years to a system with growing influence of biota. Concerning the hydrology, a regime shift from surface runoff to groundwater flow dominated processes is significant. It is of interest, whether the catchment transition is also reflected by hydrogeochemical indicators. We assume gypsum dissolution as dominant process at the catchment scale. In order to investigate the hydrogeochemical evolution of the catchment we analysed electric conductivity, calcium and sulphate concentrations and pH-values of biweekly composite samples from 2007-2013 of the atmospheric deposition, of runoff and soil water. The two observation points in the flowing water represent surface runoff and groundwater discharge respectively. Soil
water has been analysed at four soil pits in three depths. The monitoring data were provided by the Research
Platform Chicken Creek. From the macroscopic data analysis we found an exponential decay of the electric conductivity, calcium and sulphate concentrations in the flowing waters and some of the soil pits. In the flowing water, the decrease slope of the electric conductivity and the calcium and sulphate concentrations is almost identical. The calcium / sulphate molar ratio as an indicator of gypsum dissolution is almost equal to one up to 2010, afterwards more calcium than sulphate is released. The pH-values in the flowing and soil water are generally higher than in the atmospheric deposition, they do show variabilites but no trend behaviour. The time series analyses showed that the interannual variability of the hydrogeochemical properties is less pronounced in the first years of ecosystem development than in the later years. This leads to the conclusion, that in the first years, gypsum dissolution is the major source for calcium and sulphate in the soil and the flowing waters. The increasing interannual variability and changes in the calcium / sulphate ratio in the later years might be interpreted as hydrogeochemical response to the development of vegetation and acidification due to the development of the rhizosphere.
Accurate determination of near surface soil electrical properties is important for agricultural and environmental management. In this respect, low frequency electromagnetic induction (EMI) has been widely used to measure soil apparent electrical conductivity. However, the potential to model soil subsurface layering has not been fully realized using EMI data. In this paper, we applied a probabilistic optimization approach, namely DREAM (ZS), on Geonics EM38 data to explore the robustness of this approach for soil subsurface conductivity mapping. The EM38 data was measured from the Ardakan region in the province of Yazd located in central Iran. Several soil sampleswere taken andwere further analyzed in a laboratory to derive soil textural and physical parameters. The probabilistic inversion was performed in a joint multi-configuration framework considering a five layered model. The estimated values are mainly in agreementwith the clay map (as the most influential factor); nevertheless, soil salinity data and inversely estimated conductivity values are poorly correlated for deeper layers due to the aridic condition and high clay content in the study area. DREAM (ZS) optimization approach appears to be promising for accurate retrieval of soil conductivity depth profile from EM38 data.
In den 1980er Jahren wurde verstärkt die Frage diskutiert, ob archäologische Fundstücke aus Metall analog zu den damals beobachteten „neuartigen Waldschäden“ ebenfalls durch Immissionsbelastungen oder andere anthropogene Einflüsse gefährdet sind. Basis dieser Annahme waren Berichte von Archäologen und Restauratoren aus Museen und Denkmalpflege ganz Deutschlands, dass der Erhaltungszustand von neuen Eisen- oder Bronzefundstücken zunehmend schlechter werde. Um dem vermuteten Zusammenhang mit Umweltbelastungen nachzugehen, rief die Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt Mitte der 1990er Jahre das interdisziplinäre Projekt „Schutz archäologischer Metallfunde vor immissionsbedingter Schädigung“ ins Leben. An verschiedenen archäologischen Fundstätten in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland wurden archäologische Metallfunde untersucht und parallel dazu Bodenuntersuchungen durchgeführt, um etwaige Umwelteinflüsse feststellen zu können. Die Ergebnisse
des Gesamtforschungsvorhabens sind in einem umfangreichen Band zusammengefasst1. Als ein mit Wald bedeckter Standort wurde der Döttenbichl, oder Döttenbühl, bei Oberammergau in die Untersuchungen mit einbezogen, auch weil vor allem die dort gefundenen Eisenobjekte unerwartet gut erhalten waren. Im Folgenden sollen die Ergebnisse der bodenkundlichen Untersuchungen an diesem Standort zusammengefasst werden, für die am 7. Mai 1996 Bodenproben genommen wurden.