Stop 13 at Ries

Where am I on the tour map?

This is yet another suevite quarry, which is no longer active and becoming overgrown by vegetation. Here we can see the two types of ejecta at the Ries structure: Bunte Breccia and Suevite. Where else have we seen this relationship of suevite overlying Bunte Breccia?

Answer: The Aumühle quarry (stop 4)

As with the Aumühle quarry, at Sternbach we see suevite overlying Bunte Breccia, with a very sharp contact between the two. This indicates that the Bunte Breccia was deposited first, it underlies the suevite, with the suevite being deposited later.

The suevite at Sternbach is somewhat unusual in that we see fairly abundant fragments of sedimentary rocks, mainly black shale. Most of the suevite we've seen at other locations (stops 3, 4, and 9) contain little-to-no sedimentary material. We don't really know why there are more fragments of sedimentary rocks here at Sternbach, but the formation of an impact crater is an incredibly complicated process that we have yet to fully unravel.

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