About us
INFLUINS is a major research project examining the movement of fluids (and associated gases) below ground. It focuses on the region between the uppermost soil horizon down to groundwater at depths of several kilometres. The use of the phrase "integrated fluid dynamics" in the name of the project underlines our interest in the relationship between near surface and deeper fluid and material flows. 50 scientists from the university of Jena and partner institutions work together from fields spanning geology, hydrogeology, geophysics, mineralogy/geochemistry and climatology (Partners). Our project is also connected to thematically related efforts such as Aqua Diva, which examines biodoversity and its controls. INFLUINS is financially supported by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) and the Ministry of Culture of the state of Thuringen. The giant "open air Geolaboratory" in which we carry out our research is the Thuringian Basin.
The Thuringian Basin covers most of Thuringen. It is bordered in the north by the Harz mountains, the south by the Thuringian Forest and the east by the Thuringian slate belt. The basin has the form of a broad, flat saucer. Geologically, it contains sandstones, limestones, clays, gypsum and salt, which were deposited from the late Permian to the earliest Jurassic (approximately 250 to 180 million years ago). The largest deposits are of Triassic age - the "Bundsandstein", Muschelkalk and Keuper. The present day basin geometry developed more recently, when, 80 million years ago, the African and European tectonic plates collided with one another. The Thuringian basin began to subside at this time, whilst the surrounding regions were squeezed together. This caused faults and fault zones to develop within the basin, which offset, tilted and sometimes folded the geological units.
