How did the snail cemetery come about?
It is a short tragic story, because even for snails it would have been unbearable to always live so close together with their neighbours. Peacefully, the snails rummaged through the loose sand near the shore in search of food. Suddenly a storm came up. It churned up the sea to the bottom and washed away the sand in which the animals lived. They were then exposed to the force of the waves, which tossed them back and forth mercilessly. Very few snails survived the inferno. Very few snails survived the inferno. A hollow finally formed their mass grave. The bodies rotted and mud entered the shells. Turned to stone, this site is therefore a reminder of the storm catastrophe 80 million years ago.
Steep borders
Besides the snails, we can take a closer look and also dare to look back. Hundreds of metres thick is the limestone downstream. Nevertheless, it was cut through smoothly when the Alps were formed. We see this on the opposite bank, where the limestone ends with an almost vertical, smooth wall. The adjacent slope is much less steep. It consists of a grey, somewhat inconspicuous sandstone that emerges from under the plant cover adjacent to the wall. What makes it special is the difference in age: the limestone was formed around 190 million years ago, whereas the sandstone was formed 80 million years ago. After it was cut through, the limestone was uplifted by hundreds of metres and has since bordered the much younger sandstone. The uplift also led to the difference in altitude that the Gamsbach stream overcomes in the Noth.
