Twenty kilometres south of Berlin stands a settlement of twelve country houses, and none of them was ever built to live in. Our new episode rebuilds the bunkers of Wünsdorf as a 3D model and tells how the German army's headquarters became a Soviet town that was closed to Germans for 41 years.
One tap and the map shows the ground itself: trenches, ramparts, spoil heaps and old tracks that vanish under the trees in aerial photos. The relief scanner works in the web map and in the apps.
We have added more than a million entries to the map. Germany now has a rock map with ages, 23 European countries have the joint map of the geological surveys, three more German states contribute raw material data, and the USA gets its old mines for the first time.
Beneath Nuremberg's old town lie some 25,000 square metres of rock cellars, cut up to four storeys deep into the sandstone. Our new episode tells how beer cellars became an art bunker and a refuge for tens of thousands, and why the imperial crown vanished behind a wall in 1945.
Not every target that's there actually shows up as a signal – the soil itself has a lot to say about that. Our new episode explains why mineralization, soil type and chemistry often matter more for a find than the device itself.
Germany's deepest cave lies beneath the Untersberg – sealed behind a steel gate, its entrance deliberately mismarked even on the official authority's own map. Here's why, and what happened after the 2014 accident that changed everything.
The old town of Nördlingen sits right inside an impact crater, and its famous church tower is built from the very rock that proves it. Our new episode traces how a scientist figured this out in 1960, and what it has to do with the Moon landing.
Wherever you stand in Germany, a known fossil site is likely closer than you'd guess. This episode shows just how dense the network of historical and active find spots really is.
In June 2012, the last shift left the pits of Saarland after nearly three centuries of coal mining. But beneath the surface, something keeps running that can never be switched off: pumps at five sites holding back water in a mine that officially no longer exists.
The question before a day out is not where something lies. It is where you may take it home. We checked 32 places in Germany one by one and sorted them into three levels: collect yourself, with rules, look only.
For weeks, videos have shown someone cracking open a stone with a white quartz vein and pulling out gold nuggets. We weighed, tested and did the maths on exactly such a stone from the Rhine near Cologne. Result: the scene cannot happen that way, and Rhine gold looks nothing like it.
Version 1.0.6 brings find talk to your phone: like and comment on other collectors’ finds, right in the app. Plus the new “New finds” section for browsing, reporting a find from home by picking the spot on the map, and a dedicated war/WWII layer in the legend. Available now on the App Store and Google Play, and find locations stay coarsened to five kilometres, as always.
In early August the Dresden gauge fell to 54 centimetres, and near Pirna a stone surfaced that people have been carving drought years into since 1707. Such hunger stones lie in the river from Děčín to Magdeburg: gauges from the time before gauges existed. The most famous one carries a warning nobody ever wants to read.
ORECAST is getting a community: you can now like other collectors' finds, and commenting follows shortly, with replies, reporting and blocking. What matters is not what is added but what stays: no comment may give away a find spot. Coordinates in any notation are intercepted before publication, and the five-kilometre blurring still applies. Also new: pick the find spot on the map when logging a find, and the War/WWII map layer.
In mid-August the Kaub gauge read nine centimetres, the lowest value since records began. As the water goes, so does the hiding place: an anti-tank rocket near Koblenz, a smouldering phosphorus grenade near Trebur, a mammoth on the Danube. Our new episode tells you why all of it is down there and what to do if you ever stand in front of a find yourself. Short version: don't touch it, keep your distance, call 110.
A potash mine near Merkers, April 1945: the US Army finds the entire gold reserve of the German Reichsbank, 8,198 bars. The new episode tells how it got there and why private citizens in Germany had to surrender their gold three times: in 1923, from 1931 and from 1945. Only on May 5, 1955 did owning gold become legal again in the Federal Republic.
The Rhinegold is not a legend: between Basel and Mannheim, an estimated 52 tonnes of gold sit in the riverbed. Our new episode maps 638 documented gold points in Europe's rivers, from the Upper Rhine to Lapland, and walks you through panning yourself with kit for under 50 euros. It will not make you rich. But your first river gold is a treasure of its own.
A parking lot, a sledding hill, a concrete block: three places you walk past without a second glance, and under each of them lies a story that explains Berlin. The new episode climbs down to the ghost stations, into the escape tunnels of Bernauer Straße and into the CIA tunnel that was betrayed before the first spade hit the ground. At the end stands a block of concrete that proved Berlin's swamp would have swallowed Hitler's Germania.
The US Geological Survey ranks Germany sixth in the world for lithium resources, at 8.9 million tonnes, and so far none of it is being mined. Our new episode travels from an opened-up smartphone via the Atacama to the Ore Mountains and the Upper Rhine Graben, asking what is really in the way. This much up front: it is not the geology.
A database turned into a children's book: “Werner Wolf and the Treasure under the City” takes children from six straight down: through pipes and sewer, across a Roman road, into a mine and down to a sea turned to stone. All of it real.
We have started a TikTok channel at @orecast1. Short videos about what sits inside the data behind the map: mammoths from lignite pits, rivers with a gold panning tradition, springs where carbon dioxide pools on the ground. Same standard as the app, just in thirty seconds.
The Amber Room has been missing since 1945, the most famous lost artwork in the world. Our new episode lets an AI sort the documented sources, and its most plausible trail ends at a railway wagon from 1944. That is not proof. But it is one hell of a story.
Beneath the streets of Essen, Bochum and Dortmund lies a labyrinth of shafts and galleries that supplied all of Europe with coal for a century. Our new episode shows this second world where it can still be seen today: on the map.
Under the cover name “Wismut”, the GDR became the fourth-largest uranium producer in history. The sites were a state secret, and the mining cost people a high price. An episode in a sober, respectful tone.
An explainer on the difference between a documented find and a plausible formation, and why any “treasure map” promising gold points accurate to the metre is really just guessing. With a four-question checklist to test any map yourself.
The map is out in both stores, with place profiles, location search, GPX export and offline areas. What lies beneath a place is now with you where it counts: outdoors.
We met him on the Upper Rhine, knee deep in cold water. After years with the pan Werner has arthritis in both paws and has changed careers. From now on he sits in our studio and comments on the videos.
Put Cologne's historical structures on a map and an almost perfect ring appears: the Prussian fortress ring, razed after 1919 and turned into the Grüngürtel. Our episode on the weapon half of Cologne drives through every day.
Beneath the Erzgebirge and the Harz lies the silver that crowned emperors, built cities and gave the dollar its name through the taler. Our episode on 800 years of mining, from 1168 to today.
For 150 million years the sky belonged to the pterosaurs: from the first ever described Pterodactylus of Solnhofen to the aircraft-sized Hatzegopteryx. Our episode on the dragons of deep time.
After building stone, gold is the second most common commodity in our database: 84,011 documented occurrences. That sounds like a land of treasure. But the honest answer to where this gold lies matters more than the big number, and it shows how ORECAST handles data.
A few metres beneath Cologne's city centre lies a second city: the Roman Colonia, with harbour, baths and a street grid the Hohe Straße still follows today. Our episode on the Cologne beneath Cologne.
Where Swabian fields lie today, predators as long as a bus once hunted 183 million years ago. Our new episode on the marine reptiles preserved by the black shale of Holzmaden, now on YouTube.
There is real gold between the pebbles of Germany's rivers, and that's just the start. From the Alps to Roman mines to Celtic hoards. Our new episode, now on YouTube.
154 million years ago Europe was not a continent but a chain of tropical islands, and its dinosaurs broke the rules. Our first episode on Europe's forgotten deep past, now on YouTube.
We have launched our own YouTube channel with cool education videos about exactly what sits on the map: fossils, ores, dinosaurs and more. Clearly explained, with real sites. Come by and subscribe.
There is real gold in the Rhine gravel, washed out by hand for centuries. What is in there, where to start and how to lift the flakes from the black sand. An honest guide.
The ORECAST iPhone app is almost ready: the same honest geo-data as on the web, plus favourites, location search, GPX export and offline maps for the field.
More than 63,000 caves, karst features and historic mining points have been added, with a clear warning where entering them is dangerous.
What's beneath a place: minerals, fossils, history. Based on real data instead of guesswork.
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