Prinz von Hessen Mine, Darmstadt-Ost, Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Hesse, Germanyi

Regional Level Types
Prinz von Hessen Mine	Open-Cast Mine (Flooded)
Darmstadt-Ost	City Borough
Darmstadt	City
Darmstadt	Region
Hesse	City-State
Germany	Country

Located 4.5 km SSW of Messel and about 6.5 km NE of Darmstadt.

The Prinz von Hessen mine is a former opencast mine in the Oberwald in the northeast of Darmstadt. After dewatering was stopped, the pit filled with groundwater and rainwater, creating a lake measuring more than 6 hectares.

The Prinz von Hessen mine is located in the northern foothills of the Odenwald, in the Sprendlinger Horst, a ridge created by volcanic activity on the eastern edge of the Upper Rhine Graben. As drillings from 2001 showed, shallow freshwater lakes (maars) with thick vegetation formed here in former volcanic craters. In the oxygen-poor water, plant parts that fell into it only slowly weathered, sank to the bottom and created oil shale and other sediments. The oil shale consists of a mixture of brown coal, bituminous claystone and turf ironstone mixed with layers of marl, sand, and fine gravel.

The Prinz von Hessen mine is only about 2 km southwest of the Messel mine, which is known as a fossil site and a UNESCO World Heritage Site and where oil shale and brown coal were also mined. The deposits are geologically related and emerged around the same time in the Eocene, around 47 million years ago.

The operating company of the Messel mine, the Gewerkschaft Messel ("Messel union"), carried out a series of exploration drillings in the Messel area from the end of the 19th century in order to develop new deposits. Among other things, they found what they were looking for in 1908 southeast of Messel in a forest area that belonged to the city of Darmstadt. On August 14, 1909, The company was granted the right to mine brown coal from the Prinz von Hessen mine that was now being developed. It is unclear who the name of the Prinz von Hessen mine refers to. Living princes of the house then ruling in the Grand Duchy of Hesse were:

— Hereditary Prince Georg Donatus of Hesse and the Rhine (1906–1937);
— Prince Ludwig of Hesse and the Rhine (1908–1968).

The Prinz von Hessen mine was operated between 1909 and 1924. However, it quickly became clear that the coal that could be mined here was not suitable for low temperature carbonisation in the corresponding facilities at the Messel mine. As a result, work began in 1910 to spin off the Prinz von Hessen mine from the Messel union's operations. For this purpose, a consortium was formed, in which the city of Darmstadt also took part. However, the parties entered into fundamental disputes and so it was not until 1916 that the operation of the mine could be outsourced to its own, newly founded Prince of Hesse trade union. During this time, the Messel union carried out further exploration work, so that commercial funding came about in the last years of the First World War. The dismantling took place in funnel chute operation. Brown coal and shale coal (“oil shale”) were mined. The mining product was transported from the pit using horse-drawn carts.

At the time of the largest expansion, the pit reached a depth of up to 40 m below the surface of the site at the time. Up to 150 miners worked here. The extracted coal was transported via a chain conveyor to the loading point on the northern edge of the mine. For the horizontal transport of the overburden from the edge of the mine to a neighbouring dump, there was a mine field railway, on which both steam and gasoline locomotives were used.

After the First World War, the pit was used by the city of Darmstadt to supply its residents with domestic coal. The quality of the brown coal for this purpose was praised. The city had set up its own sale for the coal. However, after the end of the shortage economy as a result of the First World War, coal from the mine no longer proved to be competitive with other commercially available products. The lack of size of the deposit, the quality of the mining product and the inadequate connection of the mine to efficient transport meant that operations were stopped in 1924. After the sump pumps were switched off, the remaining hole quickly filled with groundwater.

Due to its remote location, the resulting forest lake (size approx. 130 m × 400 m, 6.3 ha; depth up to 13 m, average depth 5.41 m) is now a popular bathing lake, where naturist bathing has been practised for decades. There is a lawn and a bathing beach, but this is only supervised by the DLRG (Deutsche Lebens-Rettungs-Gesellschaft, "German Life Saving Association") on weekends in summer. Water sports and scuba diving are not permitted, as are barbecues and open fires due to the proximity to the forest (risk of fire).

The Darmstadt fishing club manages the lake as a fishing water, especially outside the bathing season.

The Ytong company (now Xella) has had permission to withdraw water since 1967, which led to a visible drop in the water level, especially in 2019.

The former mine is part of the Rhine-Main Darmstadt North Industrial Heritage Route as station no. 43.

Other Databases

Wikipedia:	https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grube_Prinz_von_Hessen
Wikidata ID:	Q1550094

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References