The high moor of Garanas is located in the Koralm at an altitude of 1300 meters. Moors occur in places where a constant excess of water prevents the complete degradation of plants to humus. Instead, in this low-oxygen and acidic environment, it results in an incomplete degradation of the plant substance to so-called peat. High moors belong to a rare type of moor, which is fed only by rainwater rich in mineral salts and is independent of groundwater. The formation of organic matter is therefore greater than their degradation, which is why the peat of a moor increases by about 1mm per year in height. In Garanas, the marsh origin began around 4000 BC in the Neolithic Age with the silting of a lake, which over millennia turned to a fen, and with increasing decoupling from the groundwater, it finally developed to high moor with almost 6m thickness.

Already by 1965, the moor occurrence was recognized as a healing mud and since then, the institute of chemistry in Graz examined over a five-year cycle of its physical and chemical properties. The composition of the healing moor of Garanas makes the effect unique to humans.

The vegetation of the high moors

High moors are extreme locations that harbor highly specialized vegetation. Plants that thrive in high moors must be able to cope with nitrogen deficiency, moisture, and an oxygen-poor, acidic environment, and often show unique adaptations. The delicate round-leaved sundew is a carnivorous plant and covers its nitrogen requirements, for example by catching insects. Heather, on the other hand, forms a symbiosis with fungi and forms a so-called mushroom root, which supplies the plant with minerals and nitrogen. The flora of the high moor of Garanas is characterized by small dwarf shrubs such as cranberries and lingonberries, which are also used as medicinal plants, and small growth forms of coniferous trees such as pines, larches and spruces. The largest part of the vegetation form peat mosses of the genus Sphagnum, which make up the largest part of the peat with heather and cotton grasses.

The healing moor of Garanas is characterized by an extremely high level of efficiency compared to other European healing moors. Compulsory inspections by the Federal Institute for Experimental Pharmacological and Balneological Investigations in Vienna also ensure the long lasting quality of this medicinal moor and prove the quality as above average. Thus, the legal requirements for a healing peloid according to the Styrian Medicinal Provincial and Spa Act are more than fulfilled.