The birth of the slate

The land mass that would one day become Europe broke away from Antarctica around 700 million years ago and slowly drifted north. 400 million years ago, in the Devonian Age, she set out to cross the equator. The iron content of the soil was oxidized to reddish hematite in tropical heat and humidity. The geologists therefore speak of the Old Red continent. Wind and weather swam the red earth into the sea. The deposits on the southern coast were also shaped by alluvial deposits from the sea itself - partly of volcanic origin. Almost 14 million years would pass before the Rhenish trough, which was sometimes 12 km deep - after several subsidence and uplifts - was filled with sediments: Muddy primeval soup from the Rhenish slate mountains.