Did you know...

that a mineral from the Vogelsberg, which was found in a research drilling, is considered an international type locality? The colorless mineral faujasite-Ca, as part of a faujasite series (therefore -Ca), was first found and represented in a drill core at Hasselborn near Ilbeshausen (north of Grebenhain). In geology and mineralogy the type locality is the place (locality), from which the sample of a rock or mineral originates, on the basis of which the first scientific description of the same took place. The mineral belongs to the zeolites, which form a large group of aluminum silicates. Synthetically produced, they are used, for example, in dishwashers.

Faujasite is a rare product of hydrothermal alteration of basaltic volcanic rocks. The circulation of hot solutions gradually alters the rock after eruption. In druses and on fractures, the entrained solution load then comes to precipitate.

The complex crystal structure of Faujasite was described in 1958, already in 1842 it was found for the first time by Augustin Alexis Damour in Sasbach am Kaiserstuhl in Baden-Wuerttemberg and received its name in honor of the French geologist and volcanologist Barthélemy Faujas de Saint-Fond (1741 - 1819). Faujasites count to the rare mineral formations and could only be verified at relatively few localities worldwide so far.

The Hasselborn research well drilled in 1972 - 1973 reached a final depth of 490.35 m and thus did not penetrate the volcanic overburden of the Vogelsberg.