Jurassic Solnhofen – Eichstätt Archaeopteryx serial site

The area around the municipalities of Solnhofen and Eichstätt is the only occurrence of Tithonian platy limestones of the Altmühltal Formation worldwide. These rocks developed from material washed into lagoons of the “Solnhofen Archipelago” during occasional storms. As there was no life present at the bottom of these toxic hypersaline lagoons, the sediment remained undisturbed. Due to this, fossils of marine as well as land living animals and plants, which were deposited in the lagoons, are exceptionally well preserved. The early bird Archaeopteryx, found for the first time in 1861 (Meyer, 1862), is the most iconic of them. All of the known 12 specimens of Archaeopteryx originate from the Solnhofen-Eichstätt area. They are a matter of research up to now (e.g. Foth et al., 2014). Additionally there have been found a lot of other famous fossils like pterosaurs and small land-living carnivorous dinosaurs besides numerous other species (Arratia et al., 2015). The platy limestones have been quarried for hundreds of years as roofing material, decoration stone and for lithographical printing. Therefore the number of good outcrops is comparatively high, which leads to the finding of new fossils up to now.