FIELD SITES

The places we work

Mostly located within a few hundred kilometers of Jena, our field sites are quite diverse, including an acidic fen, a lake in a former coal mine pit, a cave, groundwater wells, and a former uranium mine. Check out the links below to see the latest photos from recent trips to these field sites.

Former Uranium Mine

The former Ronneburg Uranium mine operated over 40 years during the GDR government, producing fuel for Russian nuclear weapons. It was shut down after reunification and recently remediated physically.

Former Coal Mine Lake #77

Lake 77 is located in Brandenburg near the city of Lauchhammer. It is a former open-pit coal mine which was flooded after the mining operations ended at this site some 40 years ago. Drainage from the waste heap near the lake has turned the water acidic.

Hainich Groundwater Wells

In the Hainich area in northwestern Thuringia, we are working on a project to explore the links between diversity above-ground and that in the deep biosphere. Our field location here is a transect of wells to the deep aquifer running along an altitude gradient.

Schlöppnerbrunnen Fen

The Schlöppnerbrunnen fen is located in northern Bavaria, close to the city of Bayreuth. The fen is slightly acidic with about .5m to 1m of peat on top of the underlaying rock.

Herrenberg Cave

The Herrenberghöhle was discovered in 2008 in the German federal state of Thuringia during the construction of a high-speed train tunnel. Before this unique site was closed up for good, we were able to collect some samples for geomicrobiology.