The Eichener See ("Lake Eichen"), known in the

Alemannic dialect Alemannic, or rarely Alemannish (''Alemannisch'', ), is a group of High German dialects. The name derives from the ancient Germanic tribal confederation known as the Alamanni ("all men"). Distribution Alemannic dialects are spoken by approxim ...

as the Eiemer See, near Eichen in the

Baden-Württemberg Baden-Württemberg (; ), commonly shortened to BW or BaWü, is a German state () in Southwest Germany, east of the Rhine, which forms the southern part of Germany's western border with France. With more than 11.07 million inhabitants across a ...

county of

Lörrach Lörrach () is a town in southwest Germany, in the valley of the Wiese, close to the French and the Swiss borders. It is the capital of the district of Lörrach in Baden-Württemberg. It is the home of a number of large employers, including t ...

is a periodic (''astatic'') karst lake in the Southern Black Forest in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. The lake, which only contains water when there is a high

water table The water table is the upper surface of the zone of saturation. The zone of saturation is where the pores and fractures of the ground are saturated with water. It can also be simply explained as the depth below which the ground is saturated. T ...

, lies in a hollow, a

muschelkalk The Muschelkalk (German for "shell-bearing limestone"; french: calcaire coquillier) is a sequence of sedimentary rock, sedimentary rock strata (a lithostratigraphy, lithostratigraphic unit) in the geology of central and western Europe. It has a Mid ...

- karst basin. It has no surface inflow, its outflows are partly subterranean and partly through evaporation.

Location

The Eichener See lies in the Southern Black Forest Nature Park on the northeastern perimeter of the Dinkelberg ridge between the nearby village of Eichen to the west, which is part of the municipality of

Schopfheim Schopfheim is a town in the district of Lörrach in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated on the river Wiese, 10 km north of Rheinfelden, and 13 km east of Lörrach. The town is the birthplace of Gisela Oeri, Max Picard, and ...

, the municipality of Hasel to the east-northeast and the town of Wehr to the southeast. It is located 2.5 km west of Erdmanns Cave (''Hasler Höhle'') in a shallow valley around 350 metres south of the Bundesstraße 518.

Geology and hydrology

Geologically Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other E ...

it is a doline which is periodically filled with water, particularly after snowmelt or after long periods of rain when the groundwater level reaches the surface. In dry periods, the depth of the

may be up to 40 metres; the deepest point of the groundwater-storing basin lies about 48 metres below the earth's surface. The background to the large variations in water level are the caverns of the Dinkelberg (which consists mainly of

) which can fill very quickly with water, but only empty slowly.

Biology

The bed of the lake is colonised by rich herbaceous community of meadow flora. These may not be grazed or fertilised during dry periods. In the lake lives '' Tanymastix lacunae'' of the order of

fairy shrimp Anostraca is one of the four orders of crustaceans in the class Branchiopoda; its members are referred to as fairy shrimp. They live in vernal pools and hypersaline lakes across the world, and they have even been found in deserts, ice-covered mo ...

s (Anostraca). The drying out of the lake is essential for its

life cycle Life cycle, life-cycle, or lifecycle may refer to: Science and academia *Biological life cycle, the sequence of life stages that an organism undergoes from birth to reproduction ending with the production of the offspring * Life-cycle hypothesis ...

. This is the only confirmed place in Germany where it is found; there are only seven other sites for the species in the whole of Europe.

History

The lake is first recorded in 1771, when five people were drowned in a

capsized Capsizing or keeling over occurs when a boat or ship is rolled on its side or further by wave action, instability or wind force beyond the angle of positive static stability or it is upside down in the water. The act of recovering a vessel fro ...

boat. People also lost their lives in the lake in 1876 and 1910. The first scientific description of the lake is probably the article ''Von einem merkwürdigen See in der oberen Markgrafschaft Baden'' ("About a notable lake in the upper Margraviate of Baden") by Heinrich Sander, which appeared in 1782 in the magazine, ''Der Naturforscher''. The lake has been protected since 1939 and, since 1983, has been designated a

natural monument A natural monument is a natural or natural/cultural feature of outstanding or unique value because of its inherent rarity, representative of aesthetic qualities or cultural significance. Under World Commission on Protected Areas guidelines, na ...

with an area of 3.75 hectares. In addition it is a

Special Area of Conservation A Special Area of Conservation (SAC) is defined in the European Union's Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC), also known as the ''Directive on the Conservation of Natural Habitats and of Wild Fauna and Flora''. They are to protect the 220 habitats and a ...

at European level.

Extent over time

In years when there is an especially heavy precipitation the (visible above ground) water level can rise to three meters and, within one to five weeks, the lake can reach a size of 250 metres long and 135 metres wide (c. 2.5 ha). It can take from 8 to 160 days for the water to disappear again. Appearance (selection) * Mid-January 2011 * Mid-January 2012 * End June 2016

References

''Naturdenkmal taucht wieder auf – Eichener See bei Schopfheim hat beachtliche Größe erreicht''
''Lokales, Kreis Lörrach'', 22 January 2011, at badische-zeitung.de André Hönig

''Lokales, Schopfheim'', 5 January 2012, retrieved 14 January 2012, at badische-zeitung.de ''Der Eichener See ist wieder da''
dpa/BZ, ''Nachrichten, Schopfheim'', 14 January 2012, at badische-zeitung.de
dpa/BZ, ''Nachrichten, Schopfheim'', 25 June 2016, at badische-zeitung.de

Literature

* Heinrich Sander
''Von einem merkwürdigen See in der obern Markgrafschaft Baden''
In: Heinrich Sanders Kleine Schriften (published by Georg Friedrich Götz), Vol. 1, Dessau and Leipzig, 1784, pp. 324–328, at books.google.de * Johann Jakob Schneider: Der Eichener See; In: Das Badische Oberland, Lörrach, 1841, pp. 130–132

External links

Welt Online, dated 28 February 2012, at welt.de * Wolfgang Faigle
''Der See ist wieder aufgetaucht.''
DIE Zeit, No. 15, 7 April 1978, pp. 55, 56, at zeit.de {{Authority control Special Areas of Conservation in Germany Natural monuments in Germany Lakes of Baden-Württemberg Lörrach (district) Baden Karst lakes