Every year, the Geo Nature Park names a ‘Geotope of the Year’. ‘Geotopes’ are geological features that provide insights into events in our planet’s distant past. Inanimate elements of the landscape like soil, rocks, and fissures, can serve as ‘windows into geological history’, giving us information about the development of our earth and the life on it.

In 2011 the honor of being named Geotope of the Year fell to the ‘Loess on the Haarlass’ (Löss am Haarlass) – an accumulation of fine loess deposits carried during the Ice Age (Pleistocene epoch, approx. 2 million to 10,000 years ago) by strong west winds from the Rhine Valley all the way to the slopes of the Odenwald mountains.

Details of guided hikes to the Loess on the Haarlass can be found in the Natürlich Heidelberg events program.

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