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Solnhofen limestone

The Jurassic lagerstätte known as the Solnhofen limestone preserves a rare assemblage of fossilized organisms, some of which, such as sea jellies, don't ordinarily fossilize at all. Others, like the early bird Archaeopteryx are preserved in such detail that they are among the most famous&mdash and most beautiful&mdash fossils in the world.

The Solnhofen beds lie in Bavaria, halfway between Nuremberg and Munich. During late Jurassic times, this was an archipelago at the edge of the Tethys Sea, which included placid lagoons that had limited access to the open sea, where salinity rose high enough that the resulting brine could not support life. So the lowest water was devoid of oxygen, many ordinary scavengers were absent, and any organism that fell into the lagoons or that drifted or was washed into the lagoons from the ocean or the land, became buried in soft carbonate mud. Thus, many delicate creatures were not consumed by scavengers or torn apart by currents. The wings of dragonflies, the imprints of stray feathers, terrestrial plants that washed into the lagoons, all were preserved. The fossils are not numerous, but some of them are spectacular, and their range gives a comprehensive picture of a local Jurassic ecosystem.

The mud silt was so fine-textured that the Solnhofen limestone is used to make lithographic plates. At times, the lagoons almost dried out, exposing sticky carbonate muds that trapped insects and even a few small dinosaurs.

Twenty-nine kinds of pterosaurs, ranging from the size of a sparrow to others 4 feet in length, have been found. Over 600 species have been identified in Solnhafen fossils.

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