The Solnhofen Limestone or Solnhofen Plattenkalk, formally known as the Altmühltal Formation, is a Jurassic Konservat-Lagerstätte that preserves a rare assemblage of fossilized organisms, including highly detailed imprints of soft bodied organisms such as sea jellies. The most familiar fossils of the Solnhofen Plattenkalk include the early feathered theropod dinosaur Archaeopteryx preserved in such detail that they are among the most famous and most beautiful fossils in the world. The Solnhofen beds lie in the German state of Bavaria (Bayern), halfway between Nuremberg (Nürnberg) and Munich (München) and were originally quarried as a source of lithographic limestone. The Jura Museum situated in Eichstätt, Germany has an extensive exhibit of Jurassic fossils from the quarries of Solnhofen and surroundings, including marine reptiles, pterosaurs, and one specimen of the early bird Archaeopteryx.
During the Late Jurassic, this area was an archipelago at the edge of the Tethys Sea. This included placid lagoons that had limited access to the open sea and where salinity rose high enough that the resulting brine could not support life. Since the lowest water was devoid of oxygen, many ordinary scavengers were absent. Any organism that fell, drifted, or was washed into the lagoons from the ocean or the land became buried in soft carbonate mud. Thus, many delicate creatures avoided consumption by scavengers or being torn apart by currents. The wings of dragonflies, the imprints of stray feathers, and terrestrial plants that washed into the lagoons were all preserved. The fossils are not numerous, but some of them are spectacular, and their range gives a comprehensive picture of a local Jurassic ecosystem.
At times, the lagoons almost dried out, exposing sticky carbonate muds that trapped insects and a few small dinosaurs. Over 600 species have been identified, including twenty-nine kinds of pterosaur ranging from the size of a sparrow to 1.2 m (4 ft) in length.
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Solnhofen is a municipality in the district of Weißenburg-Gunzenhausen in the region of Middle Franconia in the Land of Bavaria in Germany. It is in the Altmühl valley. The local area is famous in geology and palaeontology for Solnhofen limestone. This is a very fine-grained limestone from the Jurassic period Lagerstätte that preserves detailed fossil specimens. Alois Senefelder used specially prepared blocks of the fine Solnhofen limestone for the process of lithography which he invented in 1798.
In the geological timescale, the Tithonian is the latest age of the Late Jurassic Epoch and the uppermost stage of the Upper Jurassic Series. It spans the time between 149.2 ±0.7 Ma and 145.0 ± 4 Ma (million years ago). It is preceded by the Kimmeridgian and followed by the Berriasian (part of the Cretaceous). The Tithonian was introduced in scientific literature by German stratigrapher Albert Oppel in 1865. The name Tithonian is unusual in geological stage names because it is derived from Greek mythology.
Rhamphorhynchus (ˌræmfəˈrɪŋkəs, from Ancient Greek rhamphos meaning "beak" and rhynchus meaning "snout") is a genus of long-tailed pterosaurs in the Jurassic period. Less specialized than contemporary, short-tailed pterodactyloid pterosaurs such as Pterodactylus, it had a long tail, stiffened with ligaments, which ended in a characteristic soft-tissue tail vane. The mouth of Rhamphorhynchus housed needle-like teeth, which were angled forward, with a curved, sharp, beak-like tip lacking teeth, indicating a diet mainly of fish; indeed, fish and cephalopod remains are frequently found in Rhamphorhynchus abdominal contents, as well as in their coprolites.
A key problem in environmental science and in engineering geology is the often incomplete understanding of the origin of dissolved components in groundwater. The dissolved contents of trace elements in groundwater are of special importance for groundwater ...
EPFL2001
This study describes the spatial heterogeneousness of the chemical composition of underground waters, particularly the trace elements, and the carbon-13 isotope in several carbonate aquifers of the alpine belt in Europe. The research forms part of the AQUI ...