The Drenthe subsoil has a rich history. Also a special hill in the forests of Ruinen. Today the thirteenth and last Geographical Monument of the province was unveiled there.
If you walk along the hill in the woods between Ruinen and Echten, you will see an ordinary piece of land at first glance. Yet this place, the ‘melt water hill’, is unique. “This hill arose during the penultimate ice age, at least 130,000 years ago,” says ecologist at the province of Drenthe, Hans Dekker. “In the thick ice pack that then slid over Drenthe, there were stones and types of soil. When the ice melted, lumps of soil with stones were left behind in the landscape.”
Drenthe has eighteen such hills. The village of Fluitenberg is located on such a hill and there is one in Braamberg as well. “But this is the most beautiful and funniest”, Dekker concludes. “Because it is located in a beautiful area in the forest, where you encounter all kinds of vegetation.”
Geographical monuments tell something about the origin of an area. The province wants to draw attention to the special soil with these monuments. “I think it is good to know how history works and how it has developed. The soil shows that in a special way,” says Deputy Tjisse Stelpstra.
De Wolden was the only municipality in Drenthe that did not yet have a geological monument. In total there are thirteen in the province. Each municipality now has its own monument, and the Noordenveld municipality even has two. But whether the meltwater mound is really the last remains to be seen. “You never know what will happen in the future”, Stelpstra laughs.
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