Szentbékkálla is a village in Káli-basin, Balaton-Highlands,

Veszprém county Veszprém (, ; ) is an administrative county (''vármegye'') in Hungary. Veszprém is also the name of the capital city of Veszprém county. Veszprém county Veszprém county lies in western Hungary. It covers the Bakony hills and the norther ...

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

. In the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

the village had a monastery of St. Benedict, which explains its name, because earlier it was Szentbenedekkál (Kál of

Saint Benedict Benedict of Nursia (; ; 2 March 480 – 21 March 547), often known as Saint Benedict, was a Great Church, Christian monk. He is famed in the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Lutheran Churches, the Anglican Communion, and Old ...

). Kál was a prince and landlord here in the ages of the Árpád's peoples arrival to Hungary.

Interesting geology at Szentbékkálla

The Szentbékkálla region is interesting from geological aspects. The volcanism at the Bakony–Balaton Highland Volcanic Field produced beautiful scenic mountains which preserved the elevations of the Pliocene plains. The basalts contain various xenoliths. Among the xenoliths there are igneous inclusions genetically related to basalts. Genetic and textural characteristics of the host basalt and some of its inclusions are analog from Szentbékkálla, North-Balaton Mountains,

, to the range of the Martian meteorites, the

shergottite A Martian meteorite is a rock that formed on Mars, was ejected from the planet by an impact event, and traversed interplanetary space before landing on Earth as a meteorite. , 277 meteorites had been classified as Martian, less than half a perce ...

s. Several types of

periodic Periodicity or periodic may refer to: Mathematics * Bott periodicity theorem, addresses Bott periodicity: a modulo-8 recurrence relation in the homotopy groups of classical groups * Periodic function, a function whose output contains values tha ...

rocks (

lherzolite Lherzolite is a type of ultramafic igneous rock. It is a coarse-grained rock consisting of 40 to 90% olivine along with significant orthopyroxene and lesser amounts of calcic chromium-rich clinopyroxene. Minor minerals include chromium and alumi ...

s, websterites and

harzburgite Harzburgite, an ultramafic, igneous rock, is a variety of peridotite consisting mostly of the two minerals olivine and low-calcium (Ca) pyroxene ( enstatite); it is named for occurrences in the Harz Mountains of Germany. It commonly contains a ...

s) can be found as inclusions in the basalt of tuff and the olivine-phyric basalts also can be found among the basalts of the Little Hungarian Plain and Tapolca Basin.

Short origin history of lherzolites of Szentbékkálla

It was found 150 years ago, that basalts of the Balaton-Highlands contain "

olivine The mineral olivine () is a magnesium iron Silicate minerals, silicate with the chemical formula . It is a type of Nesosilicates, nesosilicate or orthosilicate. The primary component of the Earth's upper mantle (Earth), upper mantle, it is a com ...

-bombs". Later, about 40 years ago it was shown, that these olivine-bombs are xenoliths originating in the

upper mantle The upper mantle of Earth is a very thick layer of rock inside the planet, which begins just beneath the crust (geology), crust (at about under the oceans and about under the continents) and ends at the top of the lower mantle (Earth), lower man ...

. All four main components of the lehrolites were found: the two fpyroxenes, olivine and

spinel Spinel () is the magnesium/aluminium member of the larger spinel group of minerals. It has the formula in the cubic crystal system. Its name comes from the Latin word , a diminutive form of ''spine,'' in reference to its pointed crystals. Prop ...

. Petrographic research all over the world studied mantle xenoliths and it was found, they are the source rocks for basalts: the basalts are partial melts of the mantle rocks. During the upheaval process the basaltic liquid carries up the fragments of the upper mantle. Several other igneous xenoliths are also related to the upper mantle and basalts. That is the short explanation of the sequence of various upper mantle xenoliths inside the basalts of Szentbékkálla.

International relations

Twin towns – Sister cities

Szentbékkálla is twinned with: *

Dürnten Dürnten is a municipality in the district of Hinwil in the canton of Zürich in Switzerland. History Dürnten is first mentioned between 743 and 747 as ''Tunriude''. Geography Dürnten has an area of . Of this area, 60.4% is used for agricu ...

, Switzerland – since 2001

Gigapan Photo

Interactive Gigapan Photo of Szentbékkálla and the surrounding area. https://gigapan.com/gigapans/36698

References

About mantle xenoliths in the Balaton-Highland Volcanic Field.

External links

Street map (Hungarian)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Szentbekkalla Populated places in Veszprém County