 | « | (3) Ejection: After only 2 seconds, the Earth’s crust rebounds. Great amounts of the crystalline basement rock (reddish in the diagram) as well as Mesozoic limestone are ejected in a cone-shaped ballistic front. As rocks from various depths are mixed, the blanket of ejecta, which gets deposited on the terrain surrounding the crater, is colourful and chaotic. It is called "Bunte Breckzie" (variegated breccie, left). Large blocks slither along the ground, away from the crater, thus generating scratch marks or striae on the underlying, solid rock (centre). From the crater’s middle an eruption cloud rises high into the atmosphere, very similar to a plinian volcanic eruption. It contains melted rock fragments and a lot of gas. | » |  |
