Auen is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Bad Kreuznach district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the Verbandsgemeinde of Bad Sobernheim, whose seat is in the like-named town. Auen is a tourism-oriented community and a state-recognized recreational area. Geography Location Auen lies in the southern Hunsrück between the Soonwald’s heights and the river Nahe. The municipal area measures 271 ha and the countryside is characterized by woodland and vineyards. Neighbouring municipalities Auen borders in the north on the town of Bad Sobernheim, in the south on the municipality of Monzingen and in the west on the municipality of Langenthal. Constituent communities Also belonging to Auen is the outlying homestead of Gosenhof. Geology It is rather easy even for those outside the field of geology to make out the geological composition in Auen and its outlying countryside. The Saar-Saale Depression runs almost down the middle of the Auener Tal (dale) from northeast to southwest, forming a clear boundary between the Rotliegend geology lying to the south and the Devonian geology lying to the north, which began in the framework of the Variscan orogeny and continued through the Pennsylvanian and into the Cisuralian. During this time, the depression was filled with thick sediments of terrestrial-limnic facies, which today can be seen as thrust sheets and streams. The bores (5 × 50 m deep) drilled to supply the municipal hall with geothermal heat showed the same mix of minerals. The groundwater that feeds the Kneipp wading basin in the village has a constant temperature in both summer and winter, with almost the same rate of flow, of 110 °C. There is no danger of volcanic eruption. The sandstone layers that formed in the Rotliegend were formerly important to employment in Auen. From the roughly eight sandstone quarries opened here, dressed stones and capitals were delivered to Cologne between 1842 and 1863 for cathedral building. Also unearthed at some of these quarries (Triftweg, Duschied, Bohnebruch) was petrified wood from the Permian. From the Devonian came fossilized plants here and there (Cordaitales leaves) and also small, fossilized creatures. These once existed in a collection, but this has unfortunately disappeared. A coal seam has also been observed north of Auen, but this has never been exploited because it is too thin to be commercially recoverable. History Archaeology Auen was until after the Second World