A Fossil-Lagerstätte (, from ''

Lager Lager (; ) is a Type of beer, style of beer brewed and Brewing#Conditioning, conditioned at low temperature. Lagers can be Pale lager, pale, Amber lager, amber, or Dark lager, dark. Pale lager is the most widely consumed and commercially availab ...

'' 'storage, lair' '' Stätte'' 'place'; plural ''Lagerstätten'') is a sedimentary deposit that preserves an exceptionally high amount of palaeontological information. ''Konzentrat-Lagerstätten'' preserve a high concentration of

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

s, while ''Konservat-Lagerstätten'' offer exceptional fossil preservation, sometimes including preserved soft tissues. ''Konservat-Lagerstätten'' may have resulted from carcass burial in an anoxic environment with minimal bacteria, thus delaying the decomposition of both gross and fine biological features until long after a durable impression was created in the surrounding matrix. ''Fossil-Lagerstätten'' spans

geological Geology (). is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Earth s ...

time from the

Neoproterozoic The Neoproterozoic Era is the last of the three geologic eras of the Proterozoic geologic eon, eon, spanning from 1 billion to 538.8 million years ago, and is the last era of the Precambrian "supereon". It is preceded by the Mesoproterozoic era an ...

era to the

present The present is the period of time that is occurring now. The present is contrasted with the past, the period of time that has already occurred; and the future, the period of time that has yet to occur. It is sometimes represented as a hyperplan ...

. Worldwide, some of the best examples of near-perfect fossilization are the

Cambrian The Cambrian ( ) is the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 51.95 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran period 538.8 Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the Ordov ...

Maotianshan shales The Maotianshan Shales () are a series of Early Cambrian sedimentary deposits in the Chiungchussu Formation or Heilinpu Formation, famous for their '' Konservat Lagerstätten'', deposits known for the exceptional preservation of fossilized orga ...

and Burgess Shale, the

Ordovician The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and System (geology), system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era (geology), Era, and the second of twelve periods of the Phanerozoic Eon (geology), Eon. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years f ...

Soom Shale, the

Silurian The Silurian ( ) is a geologic period and system spanning 23.5 million years from the end of the Ordovician Period, at million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Devonian Period, Mya. The Silurian is the third and shortest period of t ...

Waukesha Biota, the

Devonian The Devonian ( ) is a period (geology), geologic period and system (stratigraphy), system of the Paleozoic era (geology), era during the Phanerozoic eon (geology), eon, spanning 60.3 million years from the end of the preceding Silurian per ...

Hunsrück Slates and Gogo Formation, the

Carboniferous The Carboniferous ( ) is a Geologic time scale, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), system of the Paleozoic era (geology), era that spans 60 million years, from the end of the Devonian Period Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the ...

Mazon Creek, the Triassic Madygen Formation, the

Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a Geological period, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately 143.1 Mya. ...

Posidonia Shale and Solnhofen Limestone, the

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 143.1 to 66 mya (unit), million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era (geology), Era, as well as the longest. At around 77.1 million years, it is the ...

Yixian,

Santana Santana may refer to: Transportation * Volkswagen Santana, an automobile * Santana Cycles, manufacturer of tandem bicycles * Santana Motors, a former Spanish automobile manufacturer * Sailboat designs by W. D. Schock Corp ** Santana 20 ** Santan ...

, & Agua Nueva formations and the Tanis Fossil Site, the

Eocene The Eocene ( ) is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (Ma). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes ...

Fur Formation,

Green River Formation The Green River Formation is an Eocene geologic formation that records the sedimentation in a group of intermountain lakes in three basins along the present-day Green River (Colorado River), Green River in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. The sedimen ...

, Messel Formation & Monte Bolca, the

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...

Foulden Maar and Ashfall Fossil Beds, the

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch (geology), epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.33 to 2.58Gray Fossil Site, and the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

Naracoorte Caves &

La Brea Tar Pits La Brea Tar Pits comprise an active Paleontological site, paleontological research site in urban Los Angeles. Hancock Park was formed around a group of tar pits where natural Bitumen, asphalt (also called asphaltum, bitumen, or pitch; ''brea'' ...

Types

Palaeontologist Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...

s distinguish two kinds:The term was originally coined by Adolf Seilacher in: The term was redefined by Julien Kimmig and James D. Schiffbauer in: # ''Konzentrat-Lagerstätten'' (concentration ''Lagerstätten'') are deposits with a particular "concentration" of disarticulated organic hard parts, such as a bone bed. These ''Lagerstätten'' are less spectacular than the more famous ''Konservat-Lagerstätten''. Their contents invariably display a large degree of time averaging, as the accumulation of bones in the absence of other sediment takes some time. Deposits with a high concentration of fossils that represent an ''in situ'' community, such as

reef A reef is a ridge or shoal of rock, coral, or similar relatively stable material lying beneath the surface of a natural body of water. Many reefs result from natural, abiotic component, abiotic (non-living) processes such as deposition (geol ...

s or

oyster Oyster is the common name for a number of different families of salt-water bivalve molluscs that live in marine or brackish habitats. In some species, the valves are highly calcified, and many are somewhat irregular in shape. Many, but no ...

beds, are not considered ''Lagerstätten''. # ''Konservat-Lagerstätten'' (conservation ''Lagerstätten'') are deposits known for the exceptional preservation of fossilized organisms or traces. The individual taphonomy of the fossils varies with the sites. Conservation ''Lagerstätten'' are crucial in elucidating important moments in the history and

evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...

of life. For example, the Burgess Shale of British Columbia is associated with the Cambrian explosion, and the Solnhofen limestone with the earliest known

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

, '' Archaeopteryx''.

Preservation

''Konservat-Lagerstätten'' preserve lightly sclerotized and soft-bodied organisms or traces of organisms that are not otherwise preserved in the usual shelly and bony fossil record; thus, they offer more complete records of ancient biodiversity and behavior and enable some reconstruction of the palaeoecology of ancient aquatic communities. In 1986, Simon Conway Morris calculated only about 14% of genera in the Burgess Shale had possessed biomineralized tissues in life. The affinities of the shelly elements of

conodont Conodonts, are an extinct group of marine jawless vertebrates belonging to the class Conodonta (from Ancient Greek κῶνος (''kōnos''), meaning " cone", and ὀδούς (''odoús''), meaning "tooth"). They are primarily known from their hard ...

s were mysterious until the associated soft tissues were discovered near Edinburgh, Scotland, in the Granton Lower

Oil Shale Oil shale is an organic-rich Granularity, fine-grained sedimentary rock containing kerogen (a solid mixture of Organic compound, organic chemical compounds) from which liquid hydrocarbons can be produced. In addition to kerogen, general compos ...

of the

.Briggs et al. 1983; Aldridge et al. 1993. Information from the broader range of organisms found in ''Lagerstätten'' have contributed to recent

phylogenetic In biology, phylogenetics () is the study of the evolutionary history of life using observable characteristics of organisms (or genes), which is known as phylogenetic inference. It infers the relationship among organisms based on empirical dat ...

reconstructions of some major metazoan groups. ''Lagerstätten'' seem to be temporally autocorrelated, perhaps because global environmental factors such as climate might affect their deposition. A number of taphonomic pathways may produce ''Konservat-Lagerstätten'': * Phosphatization (replacing soft tissues with

phosphate Phosphates are the naturally occurring form of the element phosphorus. In chemistry, a phosphate is an anion, salt, functional group or ester derived from a phosphoric acid. It most commonly means orthophosphate, a derivative of orthop ...

, such as Orsten-type and Doushantuo-type preservations). * Silicification (replacing or entombing soft tissues with silica, such as

petrified wood Petrified wood (from Ancient Greek meaning 'rock' or 'stone'; literally 'wood turned into stone'), is the name given to a special type of ''fossilized wood'', the fossilized remains of terrestrial plant, terrestrial vegetation. ''Petrifaction ...

or Bitter Springs-type preservation). * Kerogenization (soft tissues converted into inert carbonaceous films, as found in Burgess Shale-type preservation). * Aluminosilification (replacing or coating soft tissues with films of aluminosilicate minerals). * Pyritization (replacing soft tissues with

pyrite The mineral pyrite ( ), or iron pyrite, also known as fool's gold, is an iron sulfide with the chemical formula Fe S2 (iron (II) disulfide). Pyrite is the most abundant sulfide mineral. Pyrite's metallic luster and pale brass-yellow hue ...

, such as the exquisite detail found in Beecher's trilobite-type preservation). * Calcification (replacing or soft tissues with

calcite Calcite is a Carbonate minerals, carbonate mineral and the most stable Polymorphism (materials science), polymorph of calcium carbonate (CaCO3). It is a very common mineral, particularly as a component of limestone. Calcite defines hardness 3 on ...

minerals). * Siderite or calcite nodules (chemicals released by decaying soft tissue modify the surrounding sediment into a siderite concretion or coal ball encasing the fossil, as found in the Mazon Creek fossil beds). * Rapid sediment cementation (impressions of soft tissue preserved through casts and molds in the surrounding sediment, such as Ediacaran-type preservation facilitated by microbial mats). *

Amber Amber is fossilized tree resin. Examples of it have been appreciated for its color and natural beauty since the Neolithic times, and worked as a gemstone since antiquity."Amber" (2004). In Maxine N. Lurie and Marc Mappen (eds.) ''Encyclopedia ...

(soft tissues encased in hardened tree resin). The identification of a fossil site as a ''Konservat-Lagerstätte'' may be based on a number of different factors which constitute "exceptional preservation". These may include the completeness of specimens, soft tissue preservation, fine-scale detail, taxonomic richness, distinctive taphonomic pathways (often multiple at the same site), the extent of the fossil layer in time and space, and particular sediment facies encouraging preservation.

Types

Preservation

Notable Lagerstätten

Precambrian

Cambrian

Ordovician

Silurian

Devonian

Carboniferous

Permian

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

Paleogene

Neogene

Quaternary

See also

References

Further reading