Oberstadtfeld

Oberstadtfeld is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Vulkaneifel district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Daun, whose seat is in the like-named town.GeographyLocationOberstadtfeld lies 6 km southwest of Daun on Bundesstraße 257 in the valley of the Kleine Kyll river in the Volcanic Eifel, a part of the Eifel known for its volcanic history, geographical and geological features, and even ongoing activity today, including gases that sometimes well up from the earth.Neighbouring municipalitiesOberstadtfeld’s neighbours are Pützborn, Neroth, Niederstadtfeld, Üdersdorf and Wallenborn.GeologyAmong geologists, Oberstadtfeld is well known for its varied fossils from an eventful geological past. Remnants of long-gone lifeforms, which have been preserved despite all the changes that have taken place in the rocks, show that the stone underlying the municipality is made up of marine deposits from the Lower Devonian. The fossils come from the Devonian Sea, as geologists call it, which covered not only the Eifel but also broad areas of Central Europe too, roughly 400 to 340 million years ago. Several lava flows and a dried-up maar kettle to the right of the road on the way to Üdersdorf bear witness to volcanic activity many millennia ago.