http://woostergeologists.scotblogs.wooster.edu/2009/06/24/a-great-geological-day-in-norway/ A World to Explore Thu, 23 May 2013 20:20:50 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 http://woostergeologists.scotblogs.wooster.edu/2009/06/24/a-great-geological-day-in-norway/comment-page-1/#comment-4795 Wooster Geologists » Blog Archive » The Messel Fossil Pit: A world-class experience Sat, 14 Aug 2010 04:51:57 +0000 http://woostergeologists.scotblogs.wooster.edu/?p=385#comment-4795 [...] FRANKFURT, GERMANY–Last year at this time I had the privilege of visiting the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale on an expedition led by my friend Matthew James of Sonoma State University in California. It was an extraordinary opportunity to visit one of the most important fossil sites in history. Today our IBA field trip had a tour of another UN World Heritage fossil locality: the Messel Pit near Darmstadt, Germany. These Eocene oil shales were formed under very unusual conditions. They are maar deposits formed in a volcanic crater. Catastrophic releases of poisonous gases, the hypothesis goes, occasionally killed the surrounding fauna, causing many to tumble into the anoxic lake to be preserved in amazing detail. This is the home of Ida (Darwinius masillae), the controversial primate fossil now in Oslo (which I also saw last summer). [...]

]]> http://woostergeologists.scotblogs.wooster.edu/2009/06/24/a-great-geological-day-in-norway/comment-page-1/#comment-2371 Susan Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:56:10 +0000 http://woostergeologists.scotblogs.wooster.edu/?p=385#comment-2371 Sun, tourist attractions, and protosimians — what more could you ask for? Well, you don’t mention the food. Still, geology would have sounded a lot more appealing to me as a student if I had read about days like these. I like the way that attention to the big picture coexists with an appreciation of specific times and places, both past and present.

]]>