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'Lagerstätten' (German; singular 'Lagerstatt'; literally ''place of storage'', ''resting place'') are sedimentary deposits that exhibit extraordinary fossil richness or completeness. Palaeontologists distinguish two kinds.The term was originally coined by Adolf Seilacher here: Begriff und Bedeutung der Fossil-Lagerstatten: Neues Jahrbuch fur Geologie und Palaontologie, Seilacher, A., , , Monatshefte, 1970
'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.
'Konservat-Lagerstätten' (''conservation Lagerstätten'') are deposits known for the exceptional preservation of fossilized organisms, where the soft parts are preserved in the form of impressions or casts. This is caused by incompleteness of biological recycling, for example where anoxic conditions, as in oxygen-free mud, has suppressed common bacterial decomposition long enough for the initial casts of soft body parts to register. 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''.
Lagerstätten preserve lightly sclerotized and soft-bodied organisms that are not otherwise preserved in the usual shelly and bony fossil record; thus they offer a more complete record of ancient biodiversity and enable some reconstruction of the paleoecology of ancient aquatic communities. In 1986 Simon Conway Morris calculated that 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.Briggs et al. 1983; Aldridge et al. 1993. Information from the broader range of organisms found in Lagerstätten have contributed to recent phylogenetic reconstructions of some major metazoan groups.
Lagerstätte still have preservational biases, i.e., certain fossils not showing up in the bed due to environmental conditions.

Contents

Important Lagerstätten

References

See Also

References

Important Lagerstätten

The world's major Lagerstätten include:

'Pre-Cambrian'
Ediacara Hills	700 mya	South Australia
Doushantuo Formation	600–555 mya	Guizhou Province, China
'Cambrian'
Maotianshan shales (Chengjiang)	525 mya	Yunnan Province, China
Emu Bay shale	525 mya	South Australia
Sirius Passet	518 mya	Greenland
Kaili Formation	513-501 mya	Guizhou province, southwest China
House Range	Middle Cambrian	Western Utah, USA
Burgess Shale	505 mya	British Columbia, Canada
Kinnekulle Orsten and Alum Shale	500 mya	Sweden
Öland Orsten and Alum Shale	500 mya	Sweden
'Ordovician'
Soom Shale	435 mya	South Africa
'Silurian'
Wenlock Series	420 mya	England
'Devonian'
Rhynie chert	400 mya	Scotland
Hunsrück Slates	390 mya	Rheinland-Pfalz, Germany
Canowindra, New South Wales	360mya	Australia
'Carboniferous'
Bear Gulch Limestone	320 mya	Montana, USA
Mazon Creek	300 mya	Illinois, USA
Hamilton Quarry	295 mya	Kansas, USA
'Triassic'
Karatau	213–144 mya	Kazakhstan
Ghost Ranch	185–155 mya	New Mexico, USA
'Jurassic'
Holzmaden	160 mya	Württemberg, Germany
La Voulte-sur-Rhone	160 mya	France
Solnhofen limestone	145 mya	Bavaria, Germany
'Cretaceous'
Yixian Formation	''ca'' 135 mya	Liaoning, China
Crato Formation	''ca'' 117 mya (Aptian)	northeast Brazil
Xiagou Formation	''ca'' 110 mya	Gansu, China
Santana Formation	108–92 mya	Brazil
Auca Mahuevo	80 mya	Patagonia, Argentina
'Eocene'
Green River Formation	50 mya	Colorado/Utah/Wyoming, USA
Monte Bolca	49 mya	Italy
Messel Oil Shale	49 mya	Hessen, Germany
London Clay	54–48 mya	UK
'Oligocene–Miocene'
Dominican amber	30–10 mya	Dominican Republic
Riversleigh	25–15 mya	Queensland, Australia
'Miocene'
Clarkia fossil beds	20–17 mya	Idaho, USA
Ashfall Fossil Beds	10 mya	Nebraska, USA
'Pleistocene'
Rancho La Brea Tar Pits	20,000 yrs bp	California, USA

References

See Also

★ List of fossil sites ''(with link directory)''

References

★ Fossil Lagerstätten — A catalogue of sites of exceptional fossil preservation produced by MSc palaeobiology students at University of Bristol's Department of Earth Sciences.

★ Three-dimensional preservation of a non-biomineralized arthropod in concretions in Silurian volcaniclastic rocks from Herefordshire, England, , Patrick J., Orr, Journal of the Geological Society, 2000