Dark Forests / Black Forests

[Mighty Darci]

Black Forest

The Black Forest is a large forested mountain range in the state of Baden-Württemberg in southwestern Germany. It is bounded by the Rhine valley to the west and south. Its highest peak is the Feldberg with an elevation of 4,898 ft. The region is roughly oblong in shape with a length of 99 mi and breadth of up to 37 mi.

The Black Forest stretches from the High Rhine in the south to the Kraichgau in the north. In the west it is bounded by the Upper Rhine Plain (which, from a natural region perspective, also includes the low chain of foothills); in the east it transitions to the Gäu, Baar and hill country west of the Klettgau. The Black Forest is the highest part of the South German Scarplands and much of it is densely wooded. It is composed of rocks of the crystalline basement and Bunter Sandstone and its natural boundary with the surrounding landscapes is formed by the emergence of muschelkalk, which is absent from the Black Forest bedrock. Thanks to the fertility of the soil which is dependent on the underlying rock, this line is both a vegetation boundary as well as the border between the Altsiedelland ("old settlement land") and the Black Forest, which was not permanently settled until the High Middle Ages. From north to south the Black Forest extends for over 150 km (93 miles), attaining a width of up to 50 kilometres in the south, and up to 30 kilometres in the north (31 mi × 19 mi). Tectonically the range forms a lifted fault block, which rises prominently in the west from the Upper Rhine Plain, whilst seen from the east it has the appearance of a heavily forested plateau.

The natural regions of the Black Forest are separated by various features:

Geomorphologically, the main division is between the gentle eastern slopes with their mostly rounded hills and broad plateaux (so-called Danubian relief, especially prominent in the north and east on the Bunter Sandstone) and the deeply incised, steeply falling terrain in the west that drops into the Upper Rhine Graben; the so-called Valley Black Forest (Talschwarzwald) with its Rhenanian relief. It is here, in the west, where the highest mountains and the greatest local differences in height (of up to 1000 metres) are found. The valleys are often narrow and ravine-like; but rarely basin-shaped. The summits are rounded and there are also the remnants of plateaux and arête-like landforms.

Geologically the clearest division is also between east and west. Large areas of the eastern Black Forest, the lowest layer of the South German Scarplands composed of Bunter Sandstone, are covered by seemingly endless coniferous forest with their island clearings. The exposed basement in the west, predominantly made up of metamorphic rocks and granites, was, despite its rugged topography, easier to settle and appears much more open and inviting today with its varied meadow valleys.

The most common way of dividing the regions of the Black Forest is, however, from north to south. Until the 1930s, the Black Forest was divided into the Northern and Southern Black Forest, the boundary being the line of the Kinzig valley. Later the Black Forest was divided into the heavily forested Northern Black Forest, the lower, central section, predominantly used for agriculture in the valleys, was the Central Black Forest and the much higher Southern Black Forest with its distinctive highland economy and ice age glacial relief. The term High Black Forest referred to the highest areas of the South and southern Central Black Forest.

The boundaries drawn were, however, quite varied. In 1931, Robert Gradmann called the Central Black Forest the catchment area of the Kinzig and in the west the section up to the lower Elz and Kinzig tributary of the Gutach.[2] A pragmatic division, which is oriented not just on natural and cultural regions, uses the most important transverse valleys. Based on that, the Central Black Forest is bounded by the Kinzig in the north and the line from Dreisam to Gutach in the south, corresponding to the Bonndorf Graben zone and the course of the present day B 31.

In 1959, Rudolf Metz combined the earlier divisions and proposed a modified tripartite division himself, which combined natural and cultural regional approaches and was widely used. His Central Black Forest is bounded in the north by the watershed between the Acher and Rench and subsequently between the Murg and Kinzig or Forbach and Kinzig, in the south by the Bonndorf Graben zone, which restricts the Black Forest in the east as does the Freudenstadt Graben further north by its transition into the Northern Black Forest.

[Mighty Darci]

Rivers in the Black Forest include the Danube (which originates in the Black Forest as the confluence of the Brigach and Breg rivers), the Enz, the Kinzig, the Murg, the Nagold, the Neckar, the Rench, and the Wiese. The Black Forest occupies part of the continental divide between the Atlantic Ocean drainage basin (drained by the Rhine) and the Black Sea drainage basin (drained by the Danube).

The longest Black Forest rivers are (length includes stretches outside the Black Forest):

Enz (65 mi)

Kinzig (58 mi)

Elz (56 mi)

Wutach (57 mi)

Nagold (56 mi), hydrological main artery of the Nagold-Enz systems

Danube (53 mi), headstreams:

Breg (29 mi)

Brigach (25 mi)

Murg (49 mi)

Rench (35 mi)

Schutter (35 mi)

Wiese (34 mi)

Acher (34 mi)

Dreisam (30 mi)

Alb (27 mi)

Glatt (23 mi),

Möhlin (20 mi)

Wolf (19 mi)

Schiltach (19 mi)

Wehra (17 mi)

Oos (16 mi)

Glasbach (11 mi), hydrological main artery of the Neckar system

Important lakes of natural, glacial origin in the Black Forest include the Titisee, the Mummelsee and the Feldsee. Especially in the Northern Black Forest are a number of other, smaller tarns. Numerous reservoirs like the — formerly natural but much smaller — Schluchsee with the other lakes of the Schluchseewerk, the Schwarzenbach Reservoir, the Kleine Kinzig Reservoir or the Nagold Reservoir are used for electricity generation, flood protection or drinking water supply.

[Mighty Darci]

Geology

The Black Forest consists of a cover of sandstone on top of a core of gneiss and granites. Formerly it shared tectonic evolution with the nearby Vosges Mountains. Later during the Middle Eocene a rifting period affected the area and caused formation of the Rhine graben. During the last glacial period of the Würm glaciation, the Black Forest was covered by glaciers; several tarns (or lakes) such as the Mummelsee are remains of this period.


Formation

Since the downfaulting of the Upper Rhine Graben during the Eocene epoch, the two shoulders on either side have been uplifted: the Black Forest to the east and the Vosges to the west. In the centre lies the Kaiserstuhl volcano which dates to the Miocene. In the times that followed, the Mesozoic platform on the uplands was largely eroded, apart from remains of bunter sandstone and Rotliegendes, but it has survived within the graben itself. During the Pliocene a pronounced, but uneven bulge occurred which especially affected the southern Black Forest, including the Feldberg. As a result, the upper surface of the basement in the northern part of the forest around the Hornisgrinde is considerably lower. In the central Black Forest, the tectonic syncline of the Kinzig and Murg emerged.


The geological foundation of the Black Forest is formed by the crystalline bedrock of the Variscan basement. This is covered in the east and northeast by bunter sandstone slabs, the so-called platforms. On the western edge a descending, step-fault-like, foothill zone borders the Upper Rhine Graben consisting of rocks of the Triassic and Jurassic periods.


Basement

The dominant rocks of the basement are gneiss (ortho- and paragneisses, in the south also migmatites and diatexites, for example on the Schauinsland and Kandel). These gneisses were penetrated by a number of granitic bodies during the Carboniferous period. Among the bigger ones are the Triberg Granite and the Forbach Granite, the youngest is the Bärhalde Granite. In the south lies the zone of Badenweiler-Lenzkirch, in which Palaeozoic rocks have been preserved (volcanite and sedimentary rocks), which are interpreted as the intercalated remains of a microcontinental collision. Still further in the southeast (around Todtmoos) is a range of exotic inclusions: gabbro from Ehrsberg, serpentinites and pyroxenites near Todtmoos, norite near Horbach), which are possibly the remnants of an accretionary wedge from a continental collision. Also noteworthy are the basins in the rotliegendes, for example the Schramberg or the Baden-Baden Basin, with, in places thick, quartz-porphyry and tuff plates (exposed, for example, on the rock massif of Battert near Baden-Baden). Thick rotliegendes rock, covered by bunter, also occurs in the north of the Dinkelberg block (several hundred metres thick in the Basel geothermal borehole). Even further to the southeast, under the Jura, lies the North Swiss Permocarboniferous Basin.


Platform

Above the crystalline basement of the Northern Black Forest and the adjacent parts of the Central Black Forest the bunter sandstone platforms rise in prominent steps. The most resistant surface strata on the stepped terrain of the grinden uplands and the heights around the upper reaches of the Enz, which have been heavily eroded by the tributaries of the Murg, is the silicified main conglomerate (Middle Bunter). To the east and north are the nappes of the Upper Bunter (platten sandstones and red clays). South of the Kinzig the bunter sandstone zone narrows to a fringe in the east of the mountain range.


Ice age and topography

It is considered proven that the Black Forest was heavily glaciated during the peak periods of at least the Riss and Würm glaciations. (up to about 10,000 years ago). This glacial geomorphology characterizes almost all of the High Black Forest as well as the main ridge of the Northern Black Forest. Apart from that, it is only discernible from a large number of cirques mainly facing northeast. Especially in this direction snow accumulated on the shaded and leeward slopes of the summit plateau to form short cirque glaciers that made the sides of these funnel-shaped depressions. There are still tarns in some of these old cirques, partly a result of the anthropogenic elevation of the low-side lip of the cirque, such as the Mummelsee, Wildsee, Schurmsee, Glaswaldsee, Buhlbachsee, Nonnenmattweiher and Feldsee. The Titisee formed as glacial lake behind a glacial moraine.

[Mighty Darci]

Climate

Climatically the mountain range differs from its surrounding countryside in having lower temperatures and higher rainfall. The highlands of the Black Forest are characterized by regular rainfall throughout the year. However, temperatures do not fall evenly with increasing elevation, nor does the rainfall increase uniformly. Rather, the precipitation rises quickly even in the lower regions and is disproportionately heavy on the rainier western side of the mountains.

Precipitation

The wettest areas are the highlands around the Hornisgrinde in the north and around the Belchen and Feldberg in the south, where annual rainfall reaches 71 inches to 83 inches. Moisture-laden Atlantic westerlies dump about as much rain in the Northern Black Forest, despite its lower elevation, than in the higher area of the Southern Black Forest. There, the Vosges act as a rain shield in the face of the prevailing winds. On the exposed east side of the Central Black Forest, it is much drier again. Thus, the annual rainfall here is only about 30 inches in places.


Temperature and sunshine

Thermally, the higher elevations of the Black Forest are characterized by relatively small annual fluctuations and steamed extreme values. This is due to the frequent light winds and greater cloud cover in summer. During the winter months, frequent high pressure means that the summits are often bathed in sunshine, while the valleys disappear under a thick blanket of fog as a result of pockets of cold air

[Mighty Darci]

Originally, the Black Forest was a mixed forest of deciduous trees and firs.

Far and away the most common are commercial timber forests, which may be more or less near-natural, with beech and oak, spruce and pine.

Unlike the North American continent, whose mountain ranges are oriented in a north-south direction, the east-west running ranges in Europe blocked the retreat of forest species in the face of advancing ice sheets. This barrier led to the extinction of several species in Europe. In the early ice ages, horse chestnut (Aesculum hippocastanum) and sweet gum (Liquidambar) became extinct. The following cold period led to the extinction of sequoia (Sequoia), umbrella pine (Sciadopitys, Cryptomeria ), arborvitaes (Thuja), tulip trees (Liriodendron) and Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga). Hemlock (Tsuga) and hickory (Carya) became extinct during the Quaternary glaciations in Central Europe.


In addition, of the numerous oak species only three were able to return to Germany and Central Europe from their refuge areas, namely the English oak (Quercus robur), sessile oak (Q. petraea) and downy oak (Q. pubescens). By comparison, in North America there are over 80 species of oak. Other types lost considerably in their intraspecific genetic diversity during the return migration such as the white fir (Abies alba).

Hunting is probably the earliest form of forest use. Among the most important species hunted are roe deer, various species of red deer, wild boar, red fox and some smaller mammals. In the past large carnivores - the lynx, brown bear and wolf - also belonged to this group.

[Mighty Darci]

Hercynian Forest

The Hercynian Forest was an ancient and dense forest that stretched eastward from the Rhine River across southern Germany and formed the northern boundary of that part of Europe known to writers of antiquity. The ancient sources are equivocal about how far east it extended. All agree that the Black Forest, which extended east from the Rhine valley, formed the western side of the Hercynian.

Across the Rhine to the west extended the Silva Carbonaria and the forest of the Ardennes. All these old-growth forests of antiquity represented the original post-glacial temperate broadleaf forest ecosystem of Europe.

Relict tracts of this once-continuous forest exist with many local names: the Schwarzwald ("Black Forest"), Odenwald, Spessart Rhön, Thüringerwald (Thuringian Forest), Harz, Rauhe Alb, Steigerwald, Fichtelgebirge, Erzgebirge, Riesengebirge, the Bohemian Forest, and the forested Carpathians. The Mittelgebirge seem to correspond more or less to a stretch of the Hercynian mountains.

The name is cited dozens of times in several classical authors, but most of the references are non-definitive, e.g., The Hercynian Forest is Pomponius Mela's silvis ac paludibus invia, "trackless forest and swamps", as the author is assuming the reader would know where the forest is. The earliest reference is in Aristotle's (Meteorologica). He refers to the Arkýnia (or Orkýnios) mountains of Europe, but tells us only that, remarkably in his experience, rivers flow north from there.

During the time of Julius Caesar, this forest blocked the advance of the Roman legions into Germania. His few statements are the most definitive. In De Bello Gallico he says that the forest stretches along the Danube from the territory of the Helvetii (present-day Switzerland) to Dacia (present-day Romania). Its implied northern dimension is nine days' march. Its eastern dimension is indefinitely more than sixty days' march. The concept fascinated him, even the old tales of unicorns (which may have represented reindeer). Caesar's references to moose and aurochs and of elk without joints which leaned against trees to sleep in the endless forests of Germania, were probably later interpolations in his Commentaries. Caesar's name for the forest is the one most used: Hercynia Silva.

Pliny the Elder, in Natural History, places the eastern regions of the Hercynium jugum, the "Hercynian mountain chain", in Pannonia (present-day Hungary) and Dacia (present-day Romania). He also gives us some dramaticised description of its composition, in which the close proximity of the forest trees causes competitive struggle among them (inter se rixantes). He mentions its gigantic oaks. But even he—if the passage in question is not an interpolated marginal gloss—is subject to the legends of the gloomy forest. He mentions unusual birds, which have feathers that "shine like fires at night". Medieval bestiaries named these birds the Ercinee. The impenetrable nature of the Hercynian Silva hindered the last concerted Roman foray into the forest, by Drusus, during 12..9 BCE: Florus asserts that Drusus invisum atque inaccessum in id tempus Hercynium saltum (Hercynia saltus, the "Hercynian ravine-land").

The isolated modern remnants of the Hercynian Forest identify its flora as a mixed one; Oscar Drude identified its Baltic elements associated with North Alpine flora, and North Atlantic species with circumpolar representatives. Similarly, Edward Gibbon noted the presence of reindeer—pseudo-Caesar's bos cervi figura—and elk—pseudo-Caesar's alces—in the forest. The wild bull which the Romans named the urus was present also, and the European bison and the now-extinct aurochs, Bos primigenius.

In the Roman sources, the Hercynian Forest was part of ethnographic Germania. There is an indication that this circumstance was fairly recent; that is, Posidonius states that the Boii, who were allegedly Celtic, were once there (as well as in Bohemia which is named for them).

[The Bear Hawk]

Those are some great posts Mighty Darci and provide a lot of starting points for forests in a campaign. Great resource, have an exalt.