The Wolayer Valley separates in the East two entirely different realms of rocks. The bright limestone of the Kellerwand in the south formed some 400 million years ago in a shallow sea. In contrast, the colourful sandstone, the shale and the limestone of the Rauchkofel slopes in the north deposited between 460 and 330 million years ago in deeper seas. The present-day spacing between these two rock types is too narrow to be explained by natural variation in the original, very different depositional environments; only movements of huge rock masses can explain their present close proximity. These unimaginable movements brought the separate rock realms together. These rocks came together due to tectonic forces that slid along a fault.

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