Sieblos fossil deposit

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The Sieblos fossil deposit is an important deposit of fossil plants and animals near Sieblos , a district of Poppenhausen in the Rhön . With an age of 33 million years, it represents a link between the formations of Messel and Rott that is otherwise not present in Germany .

Emergence

33 million years ago, in the early Oligocene , there was a forest-surrounded freshwater lake with a bank zone rich in vegetation at the site of today's Sieblos. It was part of a lake landscape in a collapse area that was created by the penetration of surface water in layers of soluble rocks of the Zechstein . The climate at that time was subtropical to tropical , i.e. significantly warmer than today. The lake was deoxygenated in its late stages. Animal carcasses and plant remains that had sunk to the bottom could no longer rot, which led to the formation of digested sludge . Over the course of millions of years, this resulted in dysodil , also known as paper or leaf charcoal. Dysodil consists almost entirely of organic matter and the skeletons of diatoms and has often preserved plant and animal material extremely well. The volcanism that began 25 million years ago in the Rhön prevented the sediments from being eroded.

Mining

While searching for kaolin for the Fulda porcelain factory, the paper coal deposits there were found southeast of the village of Sieblos in 1846. 1856, the breakdown of Dysodil and began bituminous shales which the distillation of tar and subsequent production of solar oil as a combustion agent for kerosene lamps were used. The mine did not work economically and changed hands several times. The dismantling was interrupted several times until it was finally stopped in 1919.

Find history

Memorial stone: Ernst Hassencamp

From around 1858 Ernst Hassencamp (1824–1881), a pharmacist in Weyhers , began to recover fossils from the overburden of the mine and to make them available to the scientific community. Individual pieces were edited by well-known paleontologists such as Hermann August Hagen , Oswald Heer , Carl Heinrich Georg von Heyden or Hermann von Meyer . Hassencamp's collection of Sieblos fossils was acquired by the Mineralogical-Geological Institute of the Julius Maximilians University of Würzburg before 1865 . In the catalog initiated by Fridolin Sandberger , 254 pieces of Hassencamps from the Sieblos formation are listed.

In the 1980s, a hobby paleontologist again collected fossils from the spoil dump. Hugo Schubert (1914–2005) collected over 8,000 individual items by 1992, including initial records for Sieblos. In early 1993 he donated part of his collection to the Poppenhausen community. The most beautiful pieces have been on view there since 1995 in the Sieblos Museum that was specially created .

In 1994, under the direction of Erlend Martini and Peter Rothe, two core drillings were carried out on the former mine site. As a result, the circumstances of the formation of the Sieblos fossil deposit could largely be clarified.

Finds

Among the plant fossils, water lily leaves and seeds are particularly common. However, there are also remains of other Bedecktsamern and their pollen as well as of ferns and conifers .

Most of the animals found were water lice , fish and snails . The latter mainly belong to the species Nystia chastelli and Gyraulus depressis . There are also mussels . Shellfish ( Ostracoda ) are sometimes found in abundance. Water lice , often of the species Eosphaeroma obtusum , are in some cases remarkably well preserved. The closest related recent genus is Sphaeroma . Beetles , water bugs , two-winged birds and dragonflies have been found among the insects in the sieve-less formation . Anton Handlirsch (1865–1935) set up his own Sieblosiidae family for the latter .

By far the most common vertebrate is the perch- like fish Smerdis Sieblosensis . The relatively seldom found amphibians are mostly frogs of the species Palaeobatrachus gracilis and Rana Sieblosensis . Furthermore, remains of crocodiles , turtle eggshells, birds and bats as well as the skull of a small mammal related to today's deer piglet were discovered .

A number of nanny fossils such as diatoms and oil algae have been detected.

literature

  • Günter Bechly : Fossil dragonfly evidence from Germany (Odonatoptera) . In: Brockhaus, T. et al: Atlas der Libellen Deutschlands (Odonata). Libellula Supplement, 14, 2015, pp. 423–464 ( PDF )
  • Gerd Geyer : Sieve-less layers. In: Gerd Geyer: Geology of Lower Franconia and neighboring regions . Klett-Perthes Verlag, Gotha 2002, pp. 365-368
  • Frank Gümbel: Sieblos fossil deposit - shop window in the Old Tertiary - a freshwater lake approx. 35 million years ago . In: Messages from the Rhön Biosphere Reserve, 17, 2012, pp. 7–12 ( PDF )
  • Hermann August Hagen: Two dragonflies from the brown coal of Sieblos . In: Palaeontographica. Contributions to the natural history of the pre-world, 5, fifth delivery from December 1858, Cassel 1855–1858, pp. 121–124 ( digitized version )
  • Hermann August Hagen: Petalura? acutipennis from the brown coal of Sieblos . In: Palaeontographica. Contributions to the natural history of the pre-world, 8, first delivery from October 1859, Cassel 1859–1861, pp. 22–26 ( digitized version )
  • Carl von Heyden: Fossil insects from the brown coal of Sieblos . In: Palaeontographica. Contributions to the natural history of the pre-world, 5, fifth delivery from December 1858, Cassel 1855–1858, pp. 115–120 ( digitized version )
  • Carl von Heyden: Fossil insects from the brown coal of Sieblos. Addendum. In: Palaeontographica. Contributions to the natural history of the pre-world, 8, first delivery from October 1859, Cassel 1859–1861, pp. 15–17 ( digitized version )
  • Ralf Kohring and Joachim Reitner: Fossils from the Oligocene from Sieblos / Rhön . In: fossils . Volume 8, 1991, pp. 359-366 ( digital copy , PDF; 4.4 MB)
  • Erlend Martini and Peter Rothe (eds.): The ancient tertiary fossil deposit Sieblos at the Wasserkuppe, Rhön . Hessian State Office f. Environment and Geology, Wiesbaden 1998, ISBN 978-3-89531-806-1
  • Hermann von Meyer: Palaeoniscus obtusus, an isopod from the brown coal of Sieblos . In: Palaeontographica. Contributions to the natural history of the pre-world, 5, fifth delivery from December 1858, Cassel 1855–1858, pp. 111–114 ( digitized version )
  • Carl Friedrich Zincken : The brown coal and its use. First part. The physiography of brown coal . Rümpler, Hanover 1867 ( digitized version )
  • Carl Friedrich Zincken: Supplements to the physiography of brown coal . Mentzel, Leipzig 1878 ( digitized version )

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Erlend Martini: The research wells Sieblos 1994 (PDF; 389 kB), 1995, as of January 27, 2009
  2. ↑ Brigitte Pflug: The history of the creation of the Sieblos-Museum Poppenhausen ( Memento from January 14, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 446 kB).
  3. ↑ Hugo Schubert: Ernst Hassencamp, scientific discoverer of the Sieblos fossil deposit . Museum letter No. 06, issue 2/1997, accessed on April 10, 2018.
  4. ↑ Peter Rothe, Martin Wittig: Hugo Schubert: "Now I make coal" . Museum letter No. 04, issue 1/1996, accessed on April 10, 2018.

Coordinates: 50 ° 29 '53.7 "  N , 9 ° 55' 9.5"  E