Siebengebirge - Geowanderung: Himmerich

Around 35 meters below the summit, there is a plateau on the south-west side from which you have a good view over the whole of Bad Honnef, the Löwenburg, the Drachenfels and some smaller mountains of the Siebengebirge. This plateau and the steep face leading to the summit document the former use of the Himmerich as a quarry for latite mining. Latite is a volcanic effusive rock named after the central Italian region of Latium, one of its main areas of distribution. Latite is the volcanic equivalent of monzonite. It is related to the andesites. Its main components are plagioclase, sanidine and pyroxene. It also contains augite, hornblende and biotite. In a fine-grained to dense groundmass there are inclusions of plagioclase, sanidine and pyroxene. In addition to Latium, the mineral is also found on Stromboli, in the French Massif Central (Puy de Dôme) and in Germany - in the Siebengebirge. The rock can be used as a building material. Numerous buildings have been constructed with it, including the Heisterbach Monastery in Königswinter, which is now only a ruin.