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Tambach Formation
The Tambach Formation is an Early Permian-age geologic formation in central Germany. It consists of red to brown-colored sedimentary rocks (red beds) such as conglomerate, sandstone, and mudstone, and is the oldest portion of the Upper Rotliegend within the Thuringian Forest Basin. The overall geology records a history with three distinct stages of sedimentation within a mountainous environment. First, tectonic activity forms a basin (the Tambach Basin) dominated by high-energy debris flows, sheetfloods, and braided rivers. These incise underlying rhyolitic rock, depositing a coarse conglomerate known as the Bielstein Conglomerate. Second, calmer conditions allow the basin to widen, and the conglomerate is marginalized by finer sediments which were previously only common at the center of the basin, such as the characteristic Tambach Sandstone. These finer sediments were deposited through repeated sequences of flooding, followed by calm water, followed by exposure to air. The ov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Geological Formation
A geological formation, or simply formation, is a body of rock having a consistent set of physical characteristics ( lithology) that distinguishes it from adjacent bodies of rock, and which occupies a particular position in the layers of rock exposed in a geographical region (the stratigraphic column). It is the fundamental unit of lithostratigraphy, the study of strata or rock layers. A formation must be large enough that it can be mapped at the surface or traced in the subsurface. Formations are otherwise not defined by the thickness of their rock strata, which can vary widely. They are usually, but not universally, tabular in form. They may consist of a single lithology (rock type), or of alternating beds of two or more lithologies, or even a heterogeneous mixture of lithologies, so long as this distinguishes them from adjacent bodies of rock. The concept of a geologic formation goes back to the beginnings of modern scientific geology. The term was used by Abraham Gottlob Wer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhyolite
Rhyolite ( ) is the most silica-rich of volcanic rocks. It is generally glassy or fine-grained (aphanitic) in texture, but may be porphyritic, containing larger mineral crystals (phenocrysts) in an otherwise fine-grained groundmass. The mineral assemblage is predominantly quartz, sanidine, and plagioclase. It is the extrusive equivalent to granite. Rhyolitic magma is extremely viscous, due to its high silica content. This favors explosive eruptions over effusive eruptions, so this type of magma is more often erupted as pyroclastic rock than as lava flows. Rhyolitic ash-flow tuffs are among the most voluminous of continental igneous rock formations. Rhyolitic tuff has been extensively used for construction. Obsidian, which is rhyolitic volcanic glass, has been used for tools from prehistoric times to the present day because it can be shaped to an extremely sharp edge. Rhyolitic pumice finds use as an abrasive, in concrete, and as a soil amendment. Description Rhyolite i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diadectidae
Diadectidae is an extinct family of early tetrapods that lived in what is now North America and Europe during the Late Carboniferous and Early Permian in Asia during the Late Permian. They were the first herbivorous tetrapods, and also the first fully terrestrial animals to attain large sizes. Footprints indicate that diadectids walked with an erect posture. They were the first to exploit plant material in terrestrial food chains, making their appearance an important stage in both vertebrate evolution and the development of terrestrial ecosystems. The best known and largest representative of the family is ''Diadectes'', a heavily built animal that attained a maximum length of several metres. Several other genera and various fragmentary fossil remains are also known. Although well known genera like ''Diadectes'' first appear in the Late Pennsylvanian, fragmentary remains of possible diadectids are known from much earlier deposits, including a piece of lower jaw found in Mississipp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dimetrodon
''Dimetrodon'' ( or ,) meaning "two measures of teeth,” is an extinct genus of non-mammalian synapsid that lived during the Cisuralian (Early Permian), around 295–272 million years ago (Mya). It is a member of the family Sphenacodontidae. The most prominent feature of ''Dimetrodon'' is the large neural spine sail on its back formed by elongated spines extending from the vertebrae. It walked on four legs and had a tall, curved skull with large teeth of different sizes set along the jaws. Most fossils have been found in the Southwestern United States, the majority coming from a geological deposit called the Red Beds of Texas and Oklahoma. More recently, its fossils have been found in Germany. Over a dozen species have been named since the genus was first erected in 1878. ''Dimetrodon'' is often mistaken for a dinosaur or as a contemporary of dinosaurs in popular culture, but it became extinct some 40 million years before the first appearance of dinosaurs. Reptile-li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Synapsid
Synapsids + (, 'arch') > () "having a fused arch"; synonymous with ''theropsids'' (Greek, "beast-face") are one of the two major groups of animals that evolved from basal amniotes, the other being the sauropsids, the group that includes reptiles and birds. The group includes mammals and every animal more closely related to mammals than to sauropsids. Unlike other amniotes, synapsids have a single temporal fenestra, an opening low in the skull roof behind each eye orbit, leaving a bony arch beneath each; this accounts for their name. The distinctive temporal fenestra developed about 318 million years ago during the Late Carboniferous period, when synapsids and sauropsids diverged, but was subsequently merged with the orbit in early mammals. Traditionally, non-mammalian synapsids were believed to have evolved from reptiles, and therefore described as mammal-like reptiles in classical systematics, and primitive synapsids were also referred to as pelycosaurs, or pelycosaur-gr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vertebrate
Vertebrates () comprise all animal taxa within the subphylum Vertebrata () ( chordates with backbones), including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Vertebrates represent the overwhelming majority of the phylum Chordata, with currently about 69,963 species described. Vertebrates comprise such groups as the following: * jawless fish, which include hagfish and lampreys * jawed vertebrates, which include: ** cartilaginous fish (sharks, rays, and ratfish) ** bony vertebrates, which include: *** ray-fins (the majority of living bony fish) *** lobe-fins, which include: **** coelacanths and lungfish **** tetrapods (limbed vertebrates) Extant vertebrates range in size from the frog species ''Paedophryne amauensis'', at as little as , to the blue whale, at up to . Vertebrates make up less than five percent of all described animal species; the rest are invertebrates, which lack vertebral columns. The vertebrates traditionally include the hagfish, which do no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thuringothyris
''Thuringothyris'' is an extinct genus of Early Permian eureptiles known from the Thuringian Forest in central Germany. Description ''Thuringothyris'' is known from the holotype MNG 7729, articulated well-preserved skull and partial postcranial skeleton, and from the referred specimens MNG 10652, poorly preserved skull and partial vertebral column, MNG 10647, disarticulated cranial and postcranial remains of at least four individuals, MNG 10183, slightly crushed skull and partial postcranial skeleton and MNG 11191, poorly preserved skull and partial limbs. All specimens were collected from the Tambach-Sandstein Member, the uppermost part of the Tambach Formation, dating to the Artinskian stage of the Late Cisuralian Series (or alternatively upper Rotliegend), about 284–279.5 million years ago. They were found in the Bromacker Quarry, the middle part of the Thuringian Forest, near the small town of Tambach-Dietharz. ''Thuringothyris'' was originally tho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eudibamus
''Eudibamus'' is an extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ... genus of biped bolosaurid ankyramorph parareptile known from the Free State of Thuringia of central Germany. It had a very small size reaching only 25-26 cm in length. Discovery ''Eudibamus'' is known only from the holotype Museum der Natur Gotha, MNG 8852, an articulated and almost complete Cranium, cranial and postcranial skeleton. It was collected from the uppermost part of the Tambach Formation, dating to the Artinskian stage of the Late Cisuralian Series (stratigraphy), Series (or alternatively upper Rotliegend), about 284–279.5 mya (unit), million years ago. It was found in the lowermost formational unit of the Upper Rotliegend Group or Series of the Bromacker Quarry, the middle part of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tambaroter
''Tambaroter'' is an extinct genus of ostodolepid microsaur from the Early Permian of Germany. The type species ''T. carrolli'' was named in 2011. ''Tambaroter'' is known from a single skull found in the Tambach Formation The Tambach Formation is an Early Permian-age geologic formation in central Germany. It consists of red to brown-colored sedimentary rocks (red beds) such as conglomerate, sandstone, and mudstone, and is the oldest portion of the Upper Rotliegend ..., which is the lowermost unit of the Upper Rotliegend. It is the only vertebrate that has been found outside the Bromacker Quarry, the most productive locality of the formation. It is also the first ostodolepid known from outside North America. Like other ostodolepids, ''Tambaroter'' has a pointed snout. Bones in the cheek region are indented upward, leaving a large gap in the bottom of the back of the skull. ''Tambaroter'' and other ostodolepids have prominent projections in the back of the lower jaws called ret ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rotaryus
''Rotaryus'' is an extinct genus of Early Permian trematopid dissorophoid temnospondyl known from the Free State of Thuringia of central Germany. Discovery ''Rotaryus'' is known only from the holotype MNG 10182, articulated partial well-preserved skull and both mandibles and a closely associated partial postcranial skeleton. The postcranial skeleton includes several articulated neural arches with ribs, most of the left shoulder girdle, humeri, right radius and ulna, and a femur. It was collected from the uppermost part of the Tambach Formation, dating to the Artinskian stage of the Late Cisuralian Series (or alternatively upper Rotliegend), about 284-279.5 million years ago. It was found in the lowermost formational unit of the Upper Rotliegend Group or Series of the Bromacker Quarry, the middle part of the Thuringian Forest, near the village of Tambach-Dietharz. ''Rotaryus'' is only the second trematopid species to be reported from the Bromacker locality, and outside of Un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tetrapod
Tetrapods (; ) are four-limbed vertebrate animals constituting the superclass Tetrapoda (). It includes extant and extinct amphibians, sauropsids ( reptiles, including dinosaurs and therefore birds) and synapsids (pelycosaurs, extinct therapsids and all extant mammals). Tetrapods evolved from a clade of primitive semiaquatic animals known as the Tetrapodomorpha which, in turn, evolved from ancient lobe-finned fish (sarcopterygians) around 390 million years ago in the Middle Devonian period; their forms were transitional between lobe-finned fishes and true four-limbed tetrapods. Limbed vertebrates (tetrapods in the broad sense of the word) are first known from Middle Devonian trackways, and body fossils became common near the end of the Late Devonian but these were all aquatic. The first crown-tetrapods (last common ancestors of extant tetrapods capable of terrestrial locomotion) appeared by the very early Carboniferous, 350 million years ago. The specific aquatic ancestors ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Siltstone
Siltstone, also known as aleurolite, is a clastic sedimentary rock that is composed mostly of silt. It is a form of mudrock with a low clay mineral content, which can be distinguished from shale by its lack of fissility.Blatt ''et al.'' 1980, pp.381-382 Although its permeability and porosity is relatively low, siltstone is sometimes a tight gas reservoir rock, an unconventional reservoir for natural gas that requires hydraulic fracturing for economic gas production. Siltstone was prized in ancient Egypt for manufacturing statuary and cosmetic palettes. The siltstone quarried at Wadi Hammamat was a hard, fine-grained siltstone that resisted flaking and was almost ideal for such uses. Description There is not complete agreement on the definition of siltstone. One definition is that siltstone is mudrock ( clastic sedimentary rock containing at least 50% clay and silt) in which at least 2/3 of the clay and silt fraction is composed of silt-sized particles. Silt is defined a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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