Petrified Forest (Chemnitz)
The Petrified Forest of Chemnitz is an important paleobotanical fossil site. The finds exhibited in the Museum für Naturkunde Chemnitz are among the city's sights.
history
The Mayor of Chemnitz and scholar Georgius Agricola (1494–1555) already reported in 1546 in his work De natura fossilium about the trunks of many trees that were turned into stone and he continues to report on the siskin tuff as a building material.
From 1709 electoral Saxon gem inspectors were sent through the country to look for new sources of gemstones. In the reports and find notices of the inspector David Frenzel (1691–1772) one can read about the petrified wood from 1740 onwards. Finds of fossil woods are reported again and again and Frenzel initially interpreted them as petrified oaks or beeches. Many fossils from this time were sent to the royal natural history chamber in Dresden, including a special, 100 hundredweight trunk with roots still attached. This 3.7 meter high petrified trunk, found in 1751, was excavated in 1752 and transported to Dresden with a team of 28 horses. After the salvage, the trunk was exhibited in the Dresden Zwinger for almost 100 years, designated as a conifer by Heinrich Göppert in 1836 and named Megadendron saxonicum by Ludwig Reichenbach in the same year . It still adorns the logo of the Museum für Naturkunde Chemnitz today. Unfortunately, the fossil trunk was destroyed in 1849 by the Dresden May Uprising and the fire in the Zwinger.
Later a finder, the Hilbersdorf building contractor Güldner, bequeathed some petrified trunks to the King Albert Museum in Chemnitz . The then first director of the museum, Johann Traugott Sterzel , took over the investigation of the finds. The Sterzeleanum in the museum is also dedicated to him.
geology
Most of the areas of the Petrified Forest that are close to the earth's surface are located under the city of Chemnitz in the Chemnitz Basin (also known as the Vorerzgebirgs-Senke ). The Vorerzgebirge depression is filled with late and post- Variscan molasse sediments from the younger Carboniferous and older Permian . The younger part of the basin filling is formed by Permian red sediments ( Rotliegend ) up to 1550 m thick, which are divided into 4 formations (Härtensdorf Formation, Planitz Formation, Leukersdorf Formation, Mülsen Formation). In the Rotliegend sequence, conglomerates , sandstones , siltstones and claystones alternate with tuffs and with small coal seams known as the Wilde Kohlengebirge . The stone forest is located stratigraphically in the sub-Permian Leukersdorf formation.
Fossils and Research
The Chemnitz Fossil deposit-containing rhizomes and stems and mostly isolated "leafy" branches of tree-like ferns (Psaroniae), club moss ( sigillaria ) and horsetails , as well as tree-like seed ferns ( Medullosen ) and other early flowering plants ( conifers , Cordaiten ). Their formation is related to the eruption of the Zeisigwald volcano in the Lower Permian about 291 million years ago. The eruption of the Zeisigwald volcano can be compared with the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980, where gigantic trees were also uprooted and kinked by the force of the eruption. However, when the Zeisigwald volcano erupted, the amount of hot volcanic ejection material ( pyroclastics ) was greater, which is due to the shorter distance between the forest and the source of the ejection material. In addition, the eruption phases became more violent with each layer deposited and the plants and animals were gradually buried deeper and deeper. The silicic acid contained in these ejecta materials then caused the fossilization of the organic matter, so that it has been preserved to this day.
The most interesting of the trunks excavated so far are exhibited today in the Museum für Naturkunde Chemnitz in the DAStietz "Kulturkaufhaus" , including slices of trunks with a polished cut surface. A small collection of pebbles was set up by the city of Chemnitz in honor of the building councilor August Orth at the corner of Orthstrasse-Zeißstrasse (formerly Zeppelinstrasse) in Chemnitz-Hilbersdorf in 1911. Many fossils were discovered and researched, especially in the years around 1900. But also in the past, fossil trees were repeatedly found in different areas of the city of Chemnitz.
From April 4, 2008 to October 2010, fossils were searched for again as part of a scientific excavation on a piece of land on Frankenberger Strasse. A specimen of the giant horsetail Arthropitys bistriata found there shows a multiple branching that was previously unknown from horsetail. This is why this extraordinary find received the Fossil of the Year 2010 award from the Palaeontological Society . For this purpose, this strain was integrated into the permanent exhibition of the Museum für Naturkunde Chemnitz. In May 2013, new excavations began on Glockenstrasse.
Many remains of extinct animals that lived in the Permian Forest of Chemnitz, especially rural arthropods , are also well preserved . This includes the "giant millipede" Arthropleura . But remnants of terrestrial vertebrates have already been found, such as the lizard-like, tree-living " pelycosaur " Ascendonanus nestleri as well as a not yet described in detail aïstopod ("Urlurch" with receding limbs, similar to today's eel newts ) and a not yet described in detail Temnospondyle (another form of "Urlurchen").
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ Ronny Rößler, Ludwig Luthardt, Jörg W. Schneider: The Petrified Forest Chemnitz - Snapshot of a volcanically preserved ecosystem from the Permian. In: Annual reports and communications from the Upper Rhine Geological Association. NF Volume 97, 2015, pp. 231-266 ( online ).
- ↑ a b Joerg W. Schneider, Ronny Rößler, Frank Fischer: Rotliegend des Chemnitz-Beckens (syn. Erzgebirge-Basin) In: Deutsche Stratigraphische Kommission (Ed .; Coordination and editing: H. Lützner & G. Kowalczyk for the sub-commission Perm -Trias): Stratigraphy of Germany X. Rotliegend. Part I: Innervariscan Basin. Series of publications of the German Society for Geosciences. Issue 61: 530-588, Hanover, 2012
- ↑ Ronny Rößler, Ludwig Luthardt, Jörg W. Schneider: The Petrified Forest Chemnitz - Snapshot of a volcanically preserved ecosystem from the Permian. Annual reports and communications from the Upper Rhine Geological Association, NF Vol. 97, 2015, pp. 231–266 ( online ).
- ↑ Chemnitz Forest is 291 million years old. Press release from October 24, 2011 on Senckenberg - World of Biodiversity
- ^ A b Johann Traugott Sterzel: The petrified forest in the garden of the König-Albert-Museum and the Orth monument in Chemnitz-Hilbersdorf. Pickenhahn, Chemnitz 1927 ( digitized version )
- ^ Ronny Rößler, Zhuo Feng, Robert Noll: The largest calamite and its growth architecture - Arthropitys bistriata from the Early Permian Petrified Forest of Chemnitz . In: Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology . tape 185 , 2012, p. 64-78 , doi : 10.1016 / j.revpalbo.2012.07.018 .
- ^ Website of the Paleontological Society with the previous Fossil of the Year award winners
- ↑ Frederik Spindler, Ralf Werneburg, Joerg W. Schneider, Ludwig Luthardt, Volker Annacker, Ronny Rößler: First arboreal 'pelycosaurs' (Synapsida: Varanopidae) from the early Permian Chemnitz Fossil Lagerstätte, SE Germany, with a review of varanopid phylogeny. PalZ - Paleontological Journal. Vol. 92, No. 2, 2018, pp. 315–364, doi: 10.1007 / s12542-018-0405-9 (alternative full text access : ResearchGate )
literature
- Ronny Rößler : The petrified forest of Chemnitz: Catalog for the Sterzeleanum exhibition . Museum für Naturkunde, Chemnitz 2001. ISBN 3-00-007446-5 .
- Ronny Rößler: Museum of Natural History Chemnitz . Free State of Saxony, Saxon State Office for Museum Affairs, Museum of Natural History Chemnitz. Chemnitz 2006. ISBN 3-89923-136-8
Web links
- Silicification process - video from September 10, 2013 on the possible silicification of sub-Permian woods by volcanic vapors rich in silicate on the YouTube channel of the Chemnitz Natural History Museum
Coordinates: 50 ° 49 ′ 51 ″ N , 12 ° 55 ′ 22.4 ″ E