dry valley of river Lone, Swabian Alb. In a rainy April this section of the perennial dry valley near Setzingen had surface water again. The premival Lone (Urlone), reaching back to Lower Miocene and maybe earlier is one of the oldest rivers of Southwest Germany. Yet faster headward erosion of Rhine tributaries and tectonic uplift of the Swabian Alb’s northern escarpment finally captured the Urlone. Throughout the valley of the Alb’s residual Lone one can observe how karstification lets a rivulet slowly fade away.