A famous German fossil site
Saturday 15 September. Steve calls Broome Prison again, but Michael Latham still isn't available. We visit the famous Messel fossil quarry near Darmstadt.
One of the world's most important sites, the 49-million-year-old oil shales of Messel, preserves a great diversity of insects, plants, fishes, frogs, reptiles, mammals and birds. The preservation of these fossils is truly extraordinary and like no other site on Earth. The mammals often have their fur preserved, stomach contents intact, even muscle tissue preserved as microbial replacements. Some of the fossil insects even have colours preserved on their delicate carapaces.
Until the 1970s the Messel quarry was in active use as an oil shale resource, but now it has been designated as a World Heritage site by UNESCO. Various academic groups slowly work the site, with permits. We were permitted to watch as students from one of the universities quarried slabs of black shale and then split them with chisels and small knives to find the fossils they contained. I asked them about security. The entire quarry is heavily protected by wire fences topped with barbed wire, and large gates that are locked when the quarry is not being worked. We were also assured that security guards patrol the site on weekends to keep out unwanted visitors. It appears that Messel is indeed a well-protected site that is used for scientific excavations only. Few Messel fossils are available on the international fossil market. Most of the rare and scientifically valuable Messel material is housed in various natural history museums and university collections in Germany, with a fair representation of some specimens in large overseas museums.
We had lunch in Darmstadt, famous as the home of Frankenstein's castle, after which we rang Digby Macintosh in Broome to see how he was, and to find out if anyone had questioned him about our visit. He seemed OK on the phone, and told us that he hadn't heard any new information about the footprints.
Sunday 16 September. I walk around the Senckenberg Museum to look at the exhibits at my leisure.
I spot a large slab of Jimbacrinus crinoids from Western Australia (not labelled as coming from Western Australia, just as 'crinoids'). It's a beautifully prepared slab, quite professionally done. There is also a large slab of shale from Liaoning, China with a beautiful fossil tortoise. I wonder if this is possibly an undescribed new species, as no identification is given on the label. Several Green River stingrays from Fossil Butte, Wyoming, are well displayed.
I was very impressed by the displays at the Senckenberg, truly one of the world's greatest natural history museums, although I haven't come to terms with the ethics of their methods of obtaining specimens. As a museum curator myself, I tend to agree with their attitude, that fossil specimens of great rarity and scientific importance which come on the international market should be purchased by museums that will conserve them and make them publicly accessible for research.
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