Pye (Osnabrück District)
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Pye is a district of the city of Osnabrück, Germany. Its positioning in the countryside on the outskirts of Osnabrück and its good transport connections to the city make it an appealing area for residents. Until 1972 Pye was a separate village in the district of Osnabrück. It belonged to the parish of St. Johann (St. John) in Osnabrück and was a predominantly
Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
area. Agriculture formed the backbone of the local economy. On 1 July 1972 it became a district of Osnabrück; since 1978 it has had its own parish (St. Matthias). Pye is also the location of the Piesberg (derived from "Pyes Berg" (Pye's Mountain)).
Coal mining Coal mining is the process of resource extraction, extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its Energy value of coal, energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to Electricity generation, generate electr ...
took place here during the 19th and 20th centuries. Even today, stones continue to be mined from the Piesberg quarry. The Piesberg was also the location of the largest landfill site in the Osnabrück region until June 2006. The Museum Industriekultur (Museum of Industrial Culture) is situated on the Piesberg, giving insight into the history of mining on the mountain. In Pye there is a street called "Am Pyer Ding". This is in reference to the Old German term "Thing" - meaning that Pye was also the location of such a "Thing". The countryside surrounding Pye is mostly characterised by small to medium-sized woods, grassland and a branch canal, which is an offshoot of the
Mittelland Canal The Mittelland Canal, also known as the Midland Canal, (, ) is a major canal in central Germany. It forms an important link in the waterway network of the country, providing the principal east-west inland waterway connection. Its significanc ...
. The Osnabrück-Piesberg railway station is located at the edge of the district - currently it is only used for special train journeys (using steam locomotives) on event days, travelling there from the central station in Osnabrück via the Osnabrück-Altstadt station.


Piesberg

Located north of
Osnabrück Osnabrück (; ; archaic English: ''Osnaburg'') is a city in Lower Saxony in western Germany. It is situated on the river Hase in a valley penned between the Wiehen Hills and the northern tip of the Teutoburg Forest. With a population of 168 ...
and the southern edge of the Wiehen Hills, Piesberg is the core of the
UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...
Global Geopark TERRA.vita. One of the largest European quarries, Piesberg is an
anticline In structural geology, an anticline is a type of Fold (geology), fold that is an arch-like shape and has its oldest Bed (geology), beds at its core, whereas a syncline is the inverse of an anticline. A typical anticline is convex curve, c ...
formed during the
Alpine orogeny The Alpine orogeny, sometimes referred to as the Alpide orogeny, is an orogenic phase in the Late Mesozoic and the current Cenozoic which has formed the mountain ranges of the Alpide belt. Cause The Alpine orogeny was caused by the African c ...
, and noted for its extensive
Upper Carboniferous Upper may refer to: * Shoe upper or ''vamp'', the part of a shoe on the top of the foot * Stimulant, drugs which induce temporary improvements in either mental or physical function or both * ''Upper'', the original film title for the 2013 found f ...
coal seam Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extrac ...
s,
siltstone Siltstone, also known as aleurolite, is a clastic sedimentary rock that is composed mostly of silt. It is a form of mudrock with a low clay mineral content, which can be distinguished from shale by its lack of fissility. Although its permeabil ...
s and
sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...
s. The
anthracite Anthracite, also known as hard coal and black coal, is a hard, compact variety of coal that has a lustre (mineralogy)#Submetallic lustre, submetallic lustre. It has the highest carbon content, the fewest impurities, and the highest energy densit ...
coal and
quartzitic Quartzite is a hard, non-Foliation (geology), foliated metamorphic rock that was originally pure quartz sandstone.Essentials of Geology, 3rd Edition, Stephen Marshak, p 182 Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usuall ...
cemented sandstone indicate thermal heating, perhaps due to the postulated Bramscher
pluton In geology, an igneous intrusion (or intrusive body or simply intrusion) is a body of intrusive igneous rock that forms by crystallization of magma slowly cooling below the surface of the Earth. Intrusions have a wide variety of forms and com ...
. The earliest use of the sandstones was in the
Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...
construction of the
Funnelbeaker culture The Funnel(-neck-)beaker culture, in short TRB or TBK (, ; ; ), was an archaeological culture in north-central Europe. It developed as a technological merger of local neolithic and mesolithic techno-complexes between the lower Elbe and middle V ...
Karlsteine tomb. Limonitic
iron ore Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the f ...
was mined from pingens in the
12th century The 12th century is the period from 1101 to 1200 in accordance with the Julian calendar. In the history of European culture, this period is considered part of the High Middle Ages and overlaps with what is often called the Golden Age' of the ...
, and coal in the
15th century The 15th century was the century which spans the Julian calendar dates from 1 January 1401 (represented by the Roman numerals MCDI) to 31 December 1500 (MD). In Europe, the 15th century includes parts of the Late Middle Ages, the Early Re ...
. In 1568, the city of Osnabrück granted coal concessions and the first mine shafts were dug. In 1868, these mines reached below the level of
groundwater Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and Pore space in soil, soil pore spaces and in the fractures of stratum, rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available fresh water in the world is groundwater. A unit ...
. Notable
mine shafts Shaft mining or shaft sinking is the action of excavating a mine shaft from the top down, where there is initially no access to the bottom. Shallow shafts, typically sunk for civil engineering projects, differ greatly in execution method from ...
include the Hase-Schacht, Schacht Franz, Wetterschacht 4, Stüve-Schacht and AlterSchacht 7. Ranging in thickness from 0.3 to 1.5 meters, notable coal seams include the Flöze Zweibänke, Flöze Dreibänke, Flöze Mittel, and the Flöze Johannisstein. The coal was used in the
Georgsmarienhütte Georgsmarienhütte () is a town in the Osnabrück (district), district of Osnabrück, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated in the Teutoburg Forest, approx. 7 km south of Osnabrück. History In 1856 the company "Georgs-Marien-Bergwerks- ...
and
Osnabrück Osnabrück (; ; archaic English: ''Osnaburg'') is a city in Lower Saxony in western Germany. It is situated on the river Hase in a valley penned between the Wiehen Hills and the northern tip of the Teutoburg Forest. With a population of 168 ...
steelworks A steel mill or steelworks is an industrial plant for the manufacture of steel. It may be an integrated steel works carrying out all steps of steelmaking from smelting iron ore to rolled product, but may also be a plant where steel semi-fini ...
. By 1898, however, coal mining had ceased. Quartizitic sandstone has been quarried since 1859, with one million
metric tonne The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1,000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton in the United States to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the sh ...
s extracted in 2018. The coal seams continue to be the source of noteworthy fossils. Plant fossils include examples of
Sphenophyllum ''Sphenophyllum'' is a genus in the order Sphenophyllales. It has been placed in the family Sphenophyllaceae. Species Species that have been described include: *†''Sphenophyllum angustifolium'' *†''Sphenophyllum biarmicum'' Zalessky (1937) ...
,
Sigillaria ''Sigillaria'' is a genus of extinct, spore-bearing, Lepidodendrales, arborescent lycophyte, known from the Carboniferous and Permian periods. It is related to the more famous ''Lepidodendron'', and more distantly to modern Isoetes, quillworts. ...
, Pecopteris and
Cordaites ''Cordaites'' is a genus of extinct gymnosperms, related to or actually representing the earliest conifers. These trees grew up to tall and stood in dry areas as well as wetlands. Brackish water mussels and crustacea are found frequently betwee ...
. Insect fossils include
Blattodea Blattodea is an order (biology), order of insects that contains cockroaches and termites. Formerly, termites were considered a separate order, Isoptera, but genetics, genetic and molecular evidence suggests they evolved from within the cockroach ...
,
Palaeodictyoptera The Palaeodictyoptera are an extinct order of medium-sized to very large, primitive Palaeozoic paleopterous insects. They are informative about the evolution of wings in insects. Overview They were characterized by beak-like mouthparts, used ...
,
Meganeuridae Meganeuridae is an extinct family of griffinfly in the order Meganisoptera. There are more than 20 genera and 50 described species in Meganeuridae. This family contain the genus '' Meganeuropsis'', which is one of the largest known insects. Gene ...
,
Arthropleura ''Arthropleura'', from Ancient Greek ἄρθρον (''árthron''), meaning "joint", and πλευρά (''pleurá''), meaning "rib", is an extinct genus of massive myriapoda, myriapod that lived in what is now Europe and North America around 344 t ...
,
Meganisoptera Meganisoptera is an extinct order of large dragonfly-like insects, informally known as griffenflies or (incorrectly) as giant dragonflies. The order was formerly named Protodonata, the "proto-Odonata", for their similar appearance and supposed r ...
and
Trigonotarbida The order Trigonotarbida is a group of extinct arachnids whose fossil record extends from the late Silurian to the early Permian ( Pridoli to Sakmarian).Dunlop, J. A., Penney, D. & Jekel, D. 2020A summary list of fossil spiders and their relative ...
. Animal fossils include
Microconchida The order Microconchida is a group of small, spirally-coiled, encrusting fossil "worm" tubes from the class Tentaculita found from the Upper Ordovician to the Middle Jurassic (Bathonian) around the world. They have lamellar calcitic shells, ...
and
Xiphosura Xiphosura (; , in reference to its sword-like telson) is an order of arthropods related to arachnids. They are more commonly known as horseshoe crabs (a name applied more specifically to the only extant family, Horseshoe crab, Limulidae). They fir ...
. The southern portion of the quarry was used as a city
landfill A landfill is a site for the disposal of waste materials. It is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of waste with daily, intermediate and final covers only began in the 1940s. In the past, waste was ...
from 1975 until 2006. The quarry floor is 100 meters below the former surface, while the removed
overburden In mining, overburden (also called waste or spoil) is the material that lies above an area that lends itself to economical exploitation, such as the rock, soil, and ecosystem that lies above a coal seam or ore body. Overburden is distinct from tai ...
is found along the flanks. Evidence of past
ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages, and g ...
s is found in sandstone
glacial striation Glacial striations or striae are scratches or gouges cut into bedrock by glacial abrasion. These scratches and gouges were first recognized as the result of a moving glacier in the late 18th century when Swiss alpinists first associated them ...
s and
loess A loess (, ; from ) is a clastic rock, clastic, predominantly silt-sized sediment that is formed by the accumulation of wind-blown dust. Ten percent of Earth's land area is covered by loesses or similar deposition (geology), deposits. A loess ...
deposited on the southern and eastern slopes.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pye (Osnabruck district) Geography of Osnabrück