Lagerstätte

A Lagerstätte (German: [ˈlaːɡɐˌʃtɛtə], from Lager 'storage, lair' Stätte 'place'; plural Lagerstätten) is a sedimentary deposit that exhibits extraordinary fossils with exceptional preservation—sometimes including preserved soft tissues. These formations 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. Lagerstätten span geological time from the Neoproterozoic era to the present. Worldwide, some of the best examples of near-perfect fossilization are the Cambrian Maotianshan shales and Burgess Shale, the Devonian Hunsrück Slates and Gogo Formation, the Carboniferous Mazon Creek, the Jurassic Solnhofen limestone, the Cretaceous Santana, Yixian formations, the Eocene Green River Formation, and the Miocene Foulden Maar.

Fossil fish from the Green River Formation, an Eocene Lagerstätte

Diplacanthus acus, an exceptionally well preserved acanthodian fish (10 cm long) from the Late Devonian Waterloo Farm lagerstätte in the Eastern Cape, South Africa

Types

Palaeontologists distinguish two kinds:[1]

1. 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 reefs or oyster beds, are not considered Lagerstätten.
2. 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 providing answers to important moments in the history and evolution 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, Archaeopteryx.

Preservation

Stranded scyphozoans with the trackways Climactichnites from Blackberry Hill, Wisconsin (Cambrian). Scyphozoan in foreground is 10 cm (3.9 in) in diameter. Slab is in hyporelief.

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 conodonts were mysterious until the associated soft tissues were discovered near Edinburgh, Scotland, in the Granton Lower Oil Shale of the Carboniferous.[2] Information from the broader range of organisms found in Lagerstätten have contributed to recent phylogenetic reconstructions of some major metazoan groups. Lagerstätten seem to be temporally autocorrelated, perhaps because global environmental factors such as climate might affect their deposition.[3]

A number of taphonomic pathways may produce Lagerstätten. The following is an incomplete list:

• Orsten-type and Doushantuo-type preservations preserve organisms in phosphate.
• Bitter Springs-type preservation preserves them in silica.
• Carbonaceous films are the result of Burgess Shale-type preservation
• Pyrite preserves exquisite detail in Beecher's trilobite-type preservation.
• Ediacaran-type preservation preserves casts and moulds with the aid of microbial mats.

Important Konservat-Lagerstätten

The world's major Lagerstätten include:

Precambrian
Bitter Springs	1000–850 Mya	South Australia
Doushantuo Formation	600–555 Mya	Guizhou Province, China
Mistaken Point	565 Mya	Newfoundland, Canada
Ediacara Hills	550–545? Mya	South Australia
Cambrian
Qingjiang biota	518 Mya	Hubei province, China
Sirius Passet	518 Mya	Greenland
Maotianshan Shales (Chengjiang)	515 Mya	Yunnan Province, China
Emu Bay Shale	513 Mya	South Australia
Kaili Formation	513–501 Mya	Guizhou province, south-west China
Blackberry Hill	~510–500 Mya	Central Wisconsin, US
Burgess Shale	508 Mya	British Columbia, Canada
Wheeler Shale (House Range)	504 Mya	Western Utah, US
Marjum Formation	502 Mya	Western Utah, US
Weeks Formation	500 Mya	Western Utah, US
Kinnekulle Orsten and Alum Shale	500 Mya	Sweden
Ordovician
Fezouata Formation	about 485 Mya	Draa Valley, Morocco
Douglas Dam Member	460 Mya	Douglas Dam, Tennessee
Beecher's Trilobite Bed	460? Mya	New York, US
Walcott-Rust Quarry	about 455? Mya	New York, US
Soom Shale	450? Mya	South Africa
Silurian
Waukesha Biota	~435 Mya	Southeastern Wisconsin, US
Wenlock Series	~425 Mya	Herefordshire, England, UK
Devonian
Rhynie chert	400 Mya	Scotland, UK
Hunsrück Slates (Bundenbach)	390 Mya	Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany
Gogo Formation	380 Mya (Frasnian)	Western Australia
Miguasha National Park	370 Mya	Québec, Canada
Canowindra, New South Wales	360 Mya	Australia
Waterloo Farm lagerstätte	360 Mya	South Africa
Carboniferous
Bear Gulch Limestone	320 Mya	Montana, US
Joggins Fossil Cliffs	315 Mya	Nova Scotia, Canada
Linton Diamond Coal Mine[4]	312 Mya	Ohio, US
Mazon Creek	310 Mya	Illinois, US
Montceau-les-Mines[5][6]	300 Mya	France
Hamilton Quarry	300 Mya	Kansas, US
Permian
Mangrullo Formation[7]	about 285–275 Mya (Artinskian)	Uruguay
Triassic
Madygen Formation	230 Mya	Kyrgyzstan
Cow Branch Formation	230 Mya	Virginia, US
Ghost Ranch	205 Mya	New Mexico, US
Jurassic
Holzmaden/Posidonia Shale	183 Mya	Württemberg, Germany
Mesa Chelonia[8]	164.6 Mya	Shanshan County, China
La Voulte-sur-Rhône	160 Mya	Ardèche, France
Karabastau Formation	155.7 Mya	Kazakhstan
Tiaojishan Formation	165-153 Mya	Liaoning Province, China
Cleveland-Lloyd Dinosaur Quarry	150 Mya	Utah, US
Solnhofen Limestone	145 Mya	Bavaria, Germany
Canjuers Limestone	145 Mya	France
Agardhfjellet Formation	150-140 Mya	Spitsbergen, Norway
Cretaceous
Las Hoyas	about 125 Mya (Barremian)	Cuenca, Spain
Yixian Formation	about 125–121 Mya	Liaoning, China
Xiagou Formation	about 120–115? Mya (mid-Apt.)	Gansu, China
Paja Formation	130-113 Mya	Colombia
Crato Formation	about 117 Mya (Aptian)	northeast Brazil
Haqel/Hjoula/al-Nammoura	about 95 Mya	Lebanon
Santana Formation	108–92 Mya	Brazil
Smoky Hill Chalk	87–82 Mya	Kansas and Nebraska, US
Ingersoll Shale	85 Mya	Alabama, US
Auca Mahuevo	80 Mya	Patagonia, Argentina
Zhucheng	66 Mya	Shandong, China
Tanis[9]	66 Mya	North Dakota, US
Eocene
Fur Formation	55–53 Mya	Fur, Denmark
London Clay	54–48 Mya	England, UK
McAbee Fossil Beds	52.9 ± 0.83 Mya	British Columbia, Canada
Green River Formation	50 Mya	Colorado/Utah/Wyoming, US
Klondike Mountain Formation	49.4 ± .5 Mya	Washington, US
Monte Bolca	49 Mya	Italy
Messel Oil Shale	49 Mya	Hessen, Germany
Quercy Phosphorites Formation[10]	25–45 Mya	South-Western France
Oligocene–Miocene
Dominican amber	30–10 Mya	Dominican Republic
Riversleigh	25–15 Mya	Queensland, Australia
Miocene
Foulden Maar	23 Mya	Otago, New Zealand
Chiapas amber	23-15 Mya	Chiapas, Mexico[11]
Clarkia fossil beds	20-17 Mya	Idaho, US
Barstow Formation	19–13.4 Mya	California, US
Shanwang Formation	18-17 Mya	Shandong Province, China
Ashfall Fossil Beds	11.83 Mya	Nebraska, US
Pisco Formation	15-2 Mya	Arequipa & Ica, Peru
Pleistocene
The Mammoth Site	26 Kya	South Dakota, US
Rancho La Brea Tar Pits	40–12 Kya	California, US
Waco Mammoth National Monument	65–51 Kya	Texas, US
El Breal de Orocual	2.5–1 Mya	Monagas, Venezuela
El Mene de Inciarte	25.5–28 Kya	Zulia, Venezuela

See also

• List of fossil sites (with link directory)
• Hoard, a concentration of human artifacts useful for similar reasons in archaeology

References

1. The term was originally coined by Adolf Seilacher in: Seilacher, A. (1970). "Begriff und Bedeutung der Fossil-Lagerstätten: Neues Jahrbuch fur Geologie und Paläontologie". Monatshefte (in German). 1970: 34–39.
2. Briggs et al. 1983; Aldridge et al. 1993.
3. Retallack, G. J. (2011). "Exceptional fossil preservation during CO₂ greenhouse crises?". Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. 307 (1–4): 59–74. doi:10.1016/j.palaeo.2011.04.023.
4. "DIRECT EVIDENCE OF FOOD CHAINS AT THE LINTON LAGERSTATTE". gsa.confex.com.
5. Garwood, Russell J.; Sharma, Prashant P.; Dunlop, Jason A.; Giribet, Gonzalo (2014). "A Paleozoic Stem Group to Mite Harvestmen Revealed through Integration of Phylogenetics and Development". Current Biology. 24 (9): 1017–23. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2014.03.039. PMID 24726154. Retrieved 17 April 2014.
6. Perrier, V.; Charbonnier, S. (2014). "The Montceau-les-Mines Lagerstätte (Late Carboniferous, France)". Comptes Rendus Palevol. 13 (5): 353–67. doi:10.1016/j.crpv.2014.03.002.
7. Piñeiro, G.; Ramos, A.; Goso, C. S.; Scarabino, F.; Laurin, M. (2012). "Unusual Environmental Conditions Preserve a Permian Mesosaur-Bearing Konservat-Lagerstätte from Uruguay". Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. 57 (2): 299–318. doi:10.4202/app.2010.0113.
8. Wings, Oliver; Rabi, Márton; Schneider, Jörg W.; Schwermann, Leonie; Sun, Ge; Zhou, Chang-Fu; Joyce, Walter G. (2012), "An enormous Jurassic turtle bone bed from the Turpan Basin of Xinjiang, China", Naturwissenschaften, 114 (11): 925–35, doi:10.1007/s00114-012-0974-5, PMID 23086389
9. DePalma, Robert; et al. (2 April 2019). "A seismically induced onshore surge deposit at the KPg boundary, North Dakota". PNAS. 116 (17): 8190–8199. doi:10.1073/pnas.1817407116. PMC 6486721. PMID 30936306.
10. Lalloy, F.; Rage, J. C.; Evans, S.E.; Boistel, R.; Lenoir, N.; Laurin, M. (2013). "A re-interpretation of the Eocene anuran Thaumastosaurus based on microCT examination of a 'mummified' specimen". PLoS ONE. 8 (9): 1–11. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0074874. PMC 3783478. PMID 24086389.
11. "Two Flat-Backed Polydesmidan Millipedes from the Miocene Chiapas-Amber Lagerstätte, Mexico".

Further reading

• Penney, D. (ed.) 2010. Biodiversity of Fossils in Amber from the Major World Deposits. Siri Scienfic Press, Manchester, 304 pp.
• "Fossil Lagerstätten". Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol. 2003. Archived from the original on 12 June 2007. Retrieved 21 November 2005. – A catalogue of sites of exceptional fossil preservation produced by MSc palaeobiology students at University of Bristol's Department of Earth Sciences.
• Orr, Patrick J.; David J. Siveter (1 January 2000). "Three-dimensional preservation of a non-biomineralized arthropod in concretions in Silurian volcaniclastic rocks from Herefordshire, England". Journal of the Geological Society. 157 (1): 173–86. doi:10.1144/jgs.157.1.173. Retrieved 26 October 2006.