		Faculty of Geosciences and Geography	University of Goettingen
		Geoscience Museum

Project Initiative “Ries-Crater”: Drilling Erbisberg

Aims

The drilling Erbisberg is part of the project initiative “Ries-Crater”. The drilling was funded and carried out by the Geological Survey at the Bavarian Environmental Agency, The drill cores are archived in the Drill-Core Archive and Resources Analysis Centre.

Aims of the drilling are as follows:

Detection of post-impact hydrothermal activity in superficial deposits (travertine) and subsurface mineralizations (veins)
Detection of possible traces of a fossil subterranean biosphere
Elucidation of the structure of the crystalline ring
Genesis of impact melts

Location

Simplified geological map of the Ries Impact Crater with location of the Erbisberg drilling site] With permission of the Bavarian Environmental Agency, Geological Survey.

Participating Institutions

Bavarian Environmental Agency, Geological Survey
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen,
Geoscience Centre, Geobiology
and Isotope-Geology and Geochemistry
Natural History Museum, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Department of Geology at the Institute of Geosciences of the Albert Ludwig´s University of Freiburg
Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Geophysics, LMU Munich

Publications / Abstracts / Poster

Arp, G., Jung, D. & Kenkmann, T. (2011): Forschungsbohrung des Bayerischen Geologischen Dienstes auf miozänem Travertinhügel des Kristallinen Ringes im Närdlinger Ries. - Geowissenschaftliche Mitteilungen (GMIT, September 2011) 45: 20-21.

Arp, G., Kolepka, C., Simon, K., Nolte, N., Karius, V., Jung, D. & Hansen, B. T. (2011): New evidence for impact-induced hydrothermal activity in the Miocene Ries impact crater, Germany. - International Conference “Fragile Earth”, 4.-7. September, München, Session 28 [Abstract with Programs: A41].

Jung, D., Sturm, S., Arp, G., Pohl, J. & Kenkmann T. (2011): First descriptions of two new borehole profiles from the Ries Impact Crater, Germany. - 74th Annual Meteoritical Society Meeting, 8.-12. August 2011, London [Poster #5456]. Meteoritics and Planetary Science, vol. 46, p. A117.

Meetings

COCARDE Workshop and Field Seminar 2012 “Carbonate mounds and frontier carbonate systems in hypersaline/hyperthermal environments - The Ries Natural Laboratory” 15.-19. October 2012, Nördlingen

Press releases and newspaper articles (in German)

13.05.2011 Bayerisches Landesamt für Umwelt: Pressemitteilung “Neue Ries-Forschungsbohrung soll Auswirkungen des Meteoriteneinschlags erhellen” http://www.lfu.bayern.de/presse/pm_detail.htm?ID=477

13.05.2011 Augsburger Allgemeine “Das Ries - bizarr wie der Monolake” http://www.augsburger-allgemeine.de/noerdlingen/Das-Ries-bizarr-wie-der-Monolake-id15074771.html

08.09.2011 Spiegel Online “Meteoriteneinschlag bei Nördlingen. Geologen ergründen Europas Urkatastrophe” http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/0,1518,772160,00.html