The Messel Pit
A German volcanic lake kills whatever comes near and preserves it whole — fur, feathers, gut contents and all.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 900 thousand years
- Known to
- ± 300 thousand years
- Era
- Eocene, Cenozoic
Messel is a maar, a crater lake formed by a phreatic explosion, with permanently anoxic bottom water and periodic lethal releases of carbon dioxide. Animals that died there sank into oil shale that preserved bacterial films outlining soft tissue: mammal fur, bird feathers with iridescence still readable, insect colours, stomach contents, and a horse mare with a foetus in place. Over 1,400 species are known. The site was nearly turned into a landfill in the 1970s and was saved by fossil collectors and local protest; it became Germany's first natural World Heritage Site in 1995.