Project Details
Projekt
Analysis of an early Permian forest ecosystem preserved in situ by volcanism
Applicant
Professor Dr. Ronny Rößler
Subject Area
Palaeontology
Term
from 2014 to 2018
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 258188145
A recently (2008-11) excavated locality in the Chemnitz Petrified Forest, lower Permian in age (290.6 ± 1.8 Ma) and occurring within the Leukersdorf Formation of the Chemnitz Basin, Germany, provides evidence for an outstanding fossil assemblage buried instantaneously by pyroclastics. This autochthonous fossil deposit preserves the most complete Permian forest ecosystem known to date. Fifty-three trunk bases, still standing upright in their place of growth and rooting in the underlying palaeosol, characterise this fossil Lagerstätte as a unique window into the past that gives insights into a lowland environment sheltering a dense hygrophilous vegetation as well as a diverse fauna of vertebrates, arthropods and gastropods, several of them recognised for the first time from the Permian. The comprehensive data-set of 3D coordinates gathered for every fossil find resulted in a special database and a 3D model applied as research tool to attain fundamental information not only on the specific volcanic taphonomy with complex diagenetic and fossilisation processes, but also permits the reconstruction of this ancient ecosystem. The habitat cyclicity documented in growth rings of arboreal woody plants provides for the first time the opportunity to implement the 4th dimension within this in-situ ecosystem. This approach will enhance our understanding of a diverse vegetation on non-peat-forming mineral stands, will shed light on their spatial heterogeneity, density, and canopy structure and will considerably add to our view on ecological relationships, food chains and evolutionary dynamics within the early Permian.
DFG Programme
Research Grants
International Connection
China, Czech Republic
