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Messel Pit
The Messel pit (german: Grube Messel) is a disused quarry near the village of Messel ( Landkreis Darmstadt-Dieburg, Hesse) about southeast of Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Bituminous shale was mined there. Because of its abundance of well-preserved fossils dating from the middle of the Eocene, it has significant geological and scientific importance. Over 1000 species of plants and animals have been found at the site. After almost becoming a landfill, strong local resistance eventually stopped these plans and the Messel Pit was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site on 9 December 1995. Significant scientific discoveries about the early evolution of mammals and birds are still being made at the Messel Pit, and the site has increasingly become a tourist site as well. History Brown coal and later oil shale was actively mined from 1859. The pit first became known for its wealth of fossils around 1900, but serious scientific excavation only started around the 1970s, when falling oil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Darmstadt-Dieburg
Darmstadt-Dieburg is a Kreis (Districts of Germany, district) in the south of Hesse, Germany. Neighboring districts are Offenbach (district), Offenbach, Aschaffenburg (district), Aschaffenburg, Miltenberg (district), Miltenberg, Odenwaldkreis, Bergstraße (district), Bergstraße, Groß-Gerau (district), Groß-Gerau, and the district-free city of Darmstadt, which it surrounds. History The district was created in 1975 by merging the previous districts of Darmstadt and Dieburg. In 1963 the district was twinned with the district of North East Derbyshire, England, in 1990 with the district Zwickauer Land in Saxony, Germany, and in 1995 with the Mladá Boleslav region in the Czech Republic. Geography The district is located in the Odenwald mountains. Most famous in the district is the Messel Pit, where many fossils in the oil shale of a Tertiary lake were found. The site is listed in the UNESCO world heritage list since 1995. Coat of arms The coat of arms show a lion in the top part, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cement
A cement is a binder, a chemical substance used for construction that sets, hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel ( aggregate) together. Cement mixed with fine aggregate produces mortar for masonry, or with sand and gravel, produces concrete. Concrete is the most widely used material in existence and is behind only water as the planet's most-consumed resource. Cements used in construction are usually inorganic, often lime or calcium silicate based, which can be characterized as hydraulic or the less common non-hydraulic, depending on the ability of the cement to set in the presence of water (see hydraulic and non-hydraulic lime plaster). Hydraulic cements (e.g., Portland cement) set and become adhesive through a chemical reaction between the dry ingredients and water. The chemical reaction results in mineral hydrates that are not very water-soluble and so are quite durable in wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cameroon
Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west-central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Its coastline lies on the Bight of Biafra, part of the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean. Due to its strategic position at the crossroads between West Africa and Central Africa, it has been categorized as being in both camps. Its nearly 27 million people speak 250 native languages. Early inhabitants of the territory included the Sao civilisation around Lake Chad, and the Baka hunter-gatherers in the southeastern rainforest. Portuguese explorers reached the coast in the 15th century and named the area ''Rio dos Camarões'' (''Shrimp River''), which became ''Cameroon'' in English. Fulani soldiers founded the Adamawa Emirate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lake Nyos
Lake Nyos ( ) is a crater lake in the Region of Cameroon, located about northwest of Yaoundé, the capital. Nyos is a deep lake high on the flank of an inactive volcano in the Oku volcanic plain along the Cameroon line of volcanic activity. A volcanic dam impounds the lake waters. A pocket of magma lies beneath the lake and leaks carbon dioxide () into the water, changing it into carbonic acid. Nyos is one of only three lakes known to be saturated with carbon dioxide in this way, and therefore prone to limnic eruptions (the others being Lake Monoun, also in Cameroon, and Lake Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda). In 1986, possibly as the result of a landslide, Lake Nyos suddenly emitted a large cloud of , which suffocated 1,746 people and 3,500 livestock in nearby towns and villages, the most notable one being Chah, which was abandoned after the incident. Though not completely unprecedented, it was the first known large-scale asphyxiation caused b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Volcanic Gas
Volcanic gases are gases given off by active (or, at times, by dormant) volcanoes. These include gases trapped in cavities (vesicles) in volcanic rocks, dissolved or dissociated gases in magma and lava, or gases emanating from lava, from volcanic craters or vents. Volcanic gases can also be emitted through groundwater heated by volcanic action. The sources of volcanic gases on Earth include: * primordial and recycled constituents from the Earth's mantle, * assimilated constituents from the Earth's crust, * groundwater and the Earth's atmosphere. Substances that may become gaseous or give off gases when heated are termed volatile substances. Composition The principal components of volcanic gases are water vapor (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), sulfur either as sulfur dioxide (SO2) (high-temperature volcanic gases) or hydrogen sulfide (H2S) (low-temperature volcanic gases), nitrogen, argon, helium, neon, methane, carbon monoxide and hydrogen. Other compounds detected in volcanic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sandstone
Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) because they are the most resistant minerals to weathering processes at the Earth's surface. Like uncemented sand, sandstone may be any color due to impurities within the minerals, but the most common colors are tan, brown, yellow, red, grey, pink, white, and black. Since sandstone beds often form highly visible cliffs and other topographic features, certain colors of sandstone have been strongly identified with certain regions. Rock formations that are primarily composed of sandstone usually allow the percolation of water and other fluids and are porous enough to store large quantities, making them valuable aquifers and petroleum reservoirs. Quartz-bearing sandstone can be changed into quartzite through metamorphism, usually related to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oil Shale
Oil shale is an organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock containing kerogen (a solid mixture of organic chemical compounds) from which liquid hydrocarbons can be produced. In addition to kerogen, general composition of oil shales constitutes inorganic substance and bitumens. Based on their deposition environment, oil shales are classified as marine, lacustrine and terrestrial oil shales. Oil shales differ from oil-''bearing'' shales, shale deposits that contain petroleum (tight oil) that is sometimes produced from drilled wells. Examples of oil-''bearing'' shales are the Bakken Formation, Pierre Shale, Niobrara Formation, and Eagle Ford Formation. Accordingly, shale oil produced from oil shale should not be confused with tight oil, which is also frequently called shale oil. Deposits of oil shale occur around the world, including major deposits in the United States. A 2016 estimate of global deposits set the total world resources of oil shale equivalent of of oil in place. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paleogene
The Paleogene ( ; British English, also spelled Palaeogene or Palæogene; informally Lower Tertiary or Early Tertiary) is a geologic period, geologic period and system that spans 43 million years from the end of the Cretaceous Period million years ago (annum, Mya) to the beginning of the Neogene Period Mya. It is the beginning of the Cenozoic Era of the present Phanerozoic Eon. The earlier term Tertiary Period was used to define the span of time now covered by the Paleogene Period and subsequent Neogene Period; despite no longer being recognised as a formal stratigraphy, stratigraphic term, 'Tertiary' is still widely found in earth science literature and remains in informal use. Paleogene is often abbreviated "Pg" (but the United States Geological Survey uses the abbreviation PE for the Paleogene on the Survey's geologic maps). During the Paleogene, evolution of mammals, mammals diversified from relatively small, simple forms into a large group of diverse animals in the wake of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kopidodon Senckenberg 2007-01
''Kopidodon'' is a genus of extinct squirrel-like mammals belonging to the order Cimolesta. ''Kopidodon'' was one of the largest tree-dwelling mammals known from Eocene Europe: growing 115 centimeters long (most of that length is tail). This mammal sported large canine teeth, probably for defense, since its molars were adapted for chewing plants, not flesh. Its legs and claws allowed ''Kopidodon'' to scramble through the trees with the greatest of ease, much like modern-day squirrels. Its fossils were found in the Messel pit The Messel pit (german: Grube Messel) is a disused quarry near the village of Messel ( Landkreis Darmstadt-Dieburg, Hesse) about southeast of Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Bituminous shale was mined there. Because of its abundance of well-preserv ..., preserving even its fur. ''Kopidodon'' had a thick bushy tail for balance.William A. Clemens and Wighart von Koenigswald: A new skeleton of ''Kopidodon macrognathus'' from the Middle Eocene of Messel and the r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maar
A maar is a broad, low-relief volcanic crater caused by a phreatomagmatic eruption (an explosion which occurs when groundwater comes into contact with hot lava or magma). A maar characteristically fills with water to form a relatively shallow crater lake which may also be called a maar. The name comes from a Moselle Franconian dialect word used for the circular lakes of the Daun area of Germany. Notes: * According to German Wikipedia's ''"Maar"'' article, in 1544 in his book ''Cosmographia'', Sebastian Münster (1488–1552) first applied the word "maar" (as ''Marh'') to the Ulmener Maar and the Laacher See. See: Sebastian Münster, ''Cosmographia'' (Basel, Switzerland: Heinrich Petri, 1544)p. 341. From p. 341: ''"Item zwen namhafftiger seen seind in der Eyfel / einer bey de schloß Ulmen / und ein ander bey dem Closter züm Laich / die seind sere tieff / habe kein ynflüß aber vil außflüß / die nennet man Marh unnd seind fischreich."'' (Also two noteworthy lakes are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Continental Drift
Continental drift is the hypothesis that the Earth's continents have moved over geologic time relative to each other, thus appearing to have "drifted" across the ocean bed. The idea of continental drift has been subsumed into the science of plate tectonics, which studies the movement of the continents as they ride on plates of the Earth's lithosphere. The speculation that continents might have 'drifted' was first put forward by Abraham Ortelius in 1596. A pioneer of the modern view of mobilism was the Austrian geologist Otto Ampferer.Helmut W. Flügel: Die virtuelle Welt des Otto Ampferer und die Realität seiner Zeit'. In: Geo. Alp., Vol. 1, 2004. The concept was independently and more fully developed by Alfred Wegener in 1912, but the hypothesis was rejected by many for lack of any motive mechanism. The English geologist Arthur Holmes later proposed mantle convection for that mechanism. History Early history Abraham Ortelius , Theodor Christoph Lilienthal (1756), A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saunders_Quarry-1.jpg "Click for more on -> Sandstone")
