GeoMinBochum 2026

 

20–24 September 2026

 

Ruhr University Bochum

News

Call for abstracts open until 6 May 2026

 

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Excursions

GeoMin2026 – pre- and post-conference excursions – overview

 

Please note:

• Your field trip booking is only valid if both the conference fee and your excursion fee have been paid in full.
• The capacity of field trips is limited and will be filled on a first-come first-served basis. If you wish to participate in a field trip that is already fully booked, please contact the conference secretary to be placed on the waiting list.
• If you need to cancel your participation in a field trip, please inform the conference secretariat as soon as possible. It may be that other conference participants are on the waiting list for that excursion.
• If we have to cancel a field trip due to insufficient participants, we will inform you by email as soon as possible and refund the field trip fee in full.
• Several day prior to the excursion, you will receive information with details of the meeting points, transportation during the trip, phone number and email address of excursion leaders.
• Proper clothing and usual accessories are needed for the excursions (i.e., mountain boots, hat, raining clothes, backpack, …).
• The participants are advised to check the local weather forecasts.
• Participation is at your own risk! You are responsible for your own insurance coverage.

 

(Almost) daily tour (Sundays and Tuesday through Thursday)

Guided tour: Visitor's mine in the Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum

20 metres down underground, we have constructed a visitor's mine based on an actual one. The entire tunnel network runs for approximately 2.5 km - 1.2 km of which is accessible to the public.

Alongside the imposing machinery on display here, visitors to the visitor's mine can also get a feel for the strenuous work routine experienced by miners. What were the working conditions like underground, and what technical developments transformed the daily working life here? Learn more by taking our Hard Coal Mine and Iron Ore Mine themed tours. A trip in the pit descent simulator is an essential element of every visit to the visitor's mine.

The exhibition mine is relatively cool, with an average temperature of only 12 °C. We therefore recommend that you bring a warm sweater or jacket.

 

• Date/Time: Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 3:00 p.m.
• Duration: approx. 45 min.
• Number of places per tour: 25
• Cost: Sunday costs €20; Tuesday–Thursday €18 per person

 

Pre-excursions (Sunday, 20.09.2026)

1) The Coal-bearing Upper Carboniferous – Iconic Outcrops and Coal Mining History of the Southern Ruhr Area

This field trip explores the coal-bearing Upper Carboniferous of the Ruhr Valley, with a focus on stratigraphy, sedimentology, and coal mining. Participants will visit classic outcrops of supra-regional importance, as well as the visitor´s mine Nachtigall. All stops are located in Bochum and its surroundings, where former quarries provide exceptional exposure of the coal-bearing successions.

 

• Guide(s): Dr. Till Kasielke & Dr. Volker Wrede (GeoPark Ruhrgebiet)
• Duration: full-day
• Number of places: max. 25

 

2) Basin development in the northern foreland of the Variscan Orogen

This field trip offers insights into the sedimentary and tectonic development of the northern foreland of the Variscan Orogen from the latest Devonian to the Carboniferous. We will visit illustrative geotopes, active quarries, and classic fossil sites of the northern Rhenish Massif. The sedimentary record encompasses the Devonian-Carboniferous boundary, the Rhenish Kulm Basin sediments, and the transition to the intensively mined coal-bearing succession of the Ruhr Basin.

 

• Guide: Dr. Sascha Sandmann (Geologischer Dienst NRW)
• Duration: full-day
• Number of places: max. 25

 

3) A look into a sediment-stressed Devonian reef (Klutert Cave, Ennepetal)

The Klutert Cave is the main cave of the Klutert-Cave system that is located ca. 30 minutes south of Bochum. Thanks to a recent, intensive cleaning of the cave walls by the Arbeitskreis Kluterthöhle, the cave enables a unique three-dimensional insight into the facies architecture of the lower coral limestone member (auto- to autoparabiostrome; ca. 12 m thickness) of the upper Honsel formation (Middle Devonian). Minute details of the internal organisation of the reef that has formed under high sediment influx, its burial and the reef builders are accessible.

 

• Guide: Dr. Tanja Unger (Heidelberg University)
• Duration: half-day
• Number of places: max. 20

 

Post-excursions (Friday, 25.09.2026)

4) From reefs to mountains, geothermal reservoirs and caves – Devonian Massenkalk carbonates at the northern Rhenish Massif as geological archives

This field trip explores the geological history of the Devonian Massenkalk limestones from their deposition in a shallow marine environment to a world-class archive for tectonic and diagenetic events between the Variscan Orogeny and the Recent. We will first visit Steltenberg quarry (Hohenlimburger Kalkwerke, Hagen Hohenlimburg), which has been explored as a surface analogue for deep geothermal carbonate reservoirs in recent years due to its complex post-depositional overprint. As this locality is known for its variety of minerals, there will be an opportunity to collect rocks in the field. Afterwards, we will head over to Dechen Cave (visitor cave in Iserlohn). Dechen cave is located in an area that hosts several of North Rhine-Westphalia´s longest cave systems. We will have a tour through the visitor cave to learn about cave formation and its archive potential.

 

• Guide: Dr. Mathias Müller (Ruhr University Bochum)
• Duration: full-day
• Number of places: max. 25

 

5) Blast from the Past? Peat, oil, and gas extraction in the Grafschaft Bentheim.

Energy resources have always been extracted in the Grafschaft Bentheim and neighbouring regions; first peat, then oil and gas. The excursion follows in the footsteps of energy resource extraction and visits production sites, renaturalised landscapes, and the reservoir rock used for oil extraction.

 

• Guide: Prof. Dr. Tobias Backers (Ruhr University Bochum)
• Duration: full-day
• Number of places: max. 26

 

6) Tracing the Ice Ages in the Lower Rhine Embayment

This field trip traces the imprint of the Ice Ages on the landscapes of the Lower Rhine Embayment and the Rhine–Ruhr region. Participants will examine characteristic landforms and sediments, including terminal moraines and extensive river terraces, as key archives of Quaternary environmental change. Field observations provide insight into past climates and the glacial and periglacial processes that shaped the region.

 

• Guide(s): Prof. Dr. Melanie Kranz (RUB) and Dr. Till Kasielke (GeoPark Ruhrgebiet)
• Duration: full-day
• Number of places: max. 25