Lower Saxony is a German state (Land) situated in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, being larger than Denmark or the Netherlands with 47,624 km2 (18,388 sq mi), and fourth-largest in population among the 16 Länder federated as the Federal Republic of Germany. In rural areas, Northern Low Saxon and Saterland Frisian are still spoken, but the number of speakers is declining.
Braunschweig or Brunswick is a city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the Oker River, which connects it to the North Sea via the Aller and Weser Rivers. In 2016, it had a population of 250,704.
Holzmaden is a town in Baden-Württemberg, Germany that lies between Stuttgart and Ulm. Holzmaden is 4 km south-east from Kirchheim unter Teck and 19 km south-east of Esslingen am Neckar. The A 8 runs south from Holzmaden. The town and surrounding area are well known as the source of exceptionally well-preserved fossils from the Jurassic period.
Snakeflies are a group of predatory insects comprising the order Raphidioptera with two extant families: Raphidiidae and Inocelliidae, consisting of roughly 260 species. In the past, the group had a much wider distribution than it does now; snakeflies are found in temperate regions worldwide but are absent from the tropics and the southern hemisphere. They are a relict group and have been considered living fossils, as species from the early Jurassic period closely resemble modern-day species.
A compression fossil is a fossil preserved in sedimentary rock that has undergone physical compression. While it is uncommon to find animals preserved as good compression fossils, it is very common to find plants preserved this way. The reason for this is that physical compression of the rock often leads to distortion of the fossil.
Ohmdenosaurus is a genus of sauropod dinosaur that lived during the Early Jurassic epoch in what is now Germany. The only specimen – a tibia (shinbone) and ankle – was discovered in rocks of the Posidonia Shale near Holzmaden. The fossil was originally identified as a plesiosaur. Exhibited in a local museum, the Urweltmuseum Hauff, it caught the attention of German paleontologist Rupert Wild, who recognized it as the remains of a sauropod. Wild named Ohmdenosaurus in a 1978 publication, the only species is Ohmdenosaurus liasicus.
Bittacidae is a family of scorpionflies commonly called hangingflies or hanging scorpionflies.
Stenopterygius is an extinct genus of thunnosaur ichthyosaur known from Europe. This genus of ichthyosaur grew to a maximum length of 4 meters.
Microcleidus is an extinct genus of sauropterygian reptile belonging to the Plesiosauroidea. It was about the size of a medium-sized dolphin, reaching a length of 3 metres (9.8 ft). The species has 40 neck vertebrae and a short tail of 28 vertebrae. Fossils of the genus have been found in France, the Posidonia Shale in Germany and Luxembourg, and the Alum Shale Formation of England.
Mystriosaurus is an extinct genus of teleosaurid crocodyliform from the Early Jurassic (Toarcian). Fossil specimens have been found in the Whitby Mudstone of England and Posidonia Shale of Germany. The only known species, M. laurillardi, exceeded 4 metres (13 ft) in length.
The Posidonia Shale geologically known as the Sachrang Formation, is an Early Jurassic (Toarcian) geological formation of southwestern and northeast Germany, northern Switzerland, northwestern Austria, southern Luxembourg and the Netherlands, including exceptionally well-preserved complete skeletons of fossil marine fish and reptiles. The Posidonienschiefer, as German paleontologists call it, takes its name from the ubiquitous fossils of the oyster-related bivalve Posidonia bronni that characterize the mollusk faunal component of the formation.
Agulla mineralensis is an extinct species of snakefly in the raphidiid genus Agulla. The species is solely known from the Middle Miocene, late Bartovian stage, Pacific Union Site in the Stewart Valley Group, Mineral County, Nevada.
Chondrites is a trace fossil ichnogenus, preserved as small branching burrows of the same diameter that superficially resemble the roots of a plant. The origin of these structures is currently unknown. Chondrites is found in marine sediments from the Cambrian period of the Paleozoic onwards. It is especially common in sediments that were deposited in reduced-oxygen environments.
Hondelagia is an extinct genus of snakefly in the Priscaenigmatidae family. The genus has been described three times under the same taxonomy, but was initially described by A. Bode in 1953. It currently contains one species, the Hondelagia reticulata which was described by Bode in 1953. Its wing is 7 centimetres (2.8 in) in length and 3 centimetres (1.2 in) in width. It was found in Hondelage in Braunschweig. The genus was later described in 1992 by F. M. Carpenter and in 2002 by M. S. Engel. The genus' sister taxa is the extinct Priscaenigma. The species has no sister taxa.
Rüningen is a Stadtbezirk (borough) on the river Oker in the southern part of Braunschweig, Germany.
Braunschweig or Landkreis Braunschweig was a district in Lower Saxony, Germany. The administrative centre of the district was the independent city of Braunschweig, which, however, was not part of the district itself.
Liassoscorpionides is an extinct genus of scorpions from the Toarcian of Germany. It was found on the Posidonia Shale, on the so-called insect beds of Hondelage near Braunschweig, on a layer, as its name suggests, full of insect genera. Liassoscorpionides is the only confirmed jurassic scorpion discovered.
The Sachrang Formation or "Posidonienschiefer" Formation is a geological formation of southwestern Germany, northern Switzerland, northwestern Austria, southeast Luxembourg and the Netherlands, that spans about 3 million years during the Early Jurassic period. It is known for its detailed fossils, especially sea fauna, listed below. Composed mostly by black shale, the formation is a Lagerstätte, where fossils show exceptional preservation, with a thickness that varies from about 1 m to about 40 m on the Rhine level, being on the main quarry at Holzmaden between 5 and 14 m. Some of the preserved material has been transformed into fossil hydrocarbon Jet, specially wood remains, used for jewelry. The exceptional preservation seen on the Posidonia Shale has been studied since the late 1800s, finding that a cocktail of chemical and environmental factors let to such an impressive conservation of the marine fauna. The most common theory is the changes on the oxygen level, where the different anoxic events of the Toarcian left oxygen-depleted bottom waters, with the biota dying and falling to the bottom without any predator able to eat the dead bodies.
The Dactyliocerassandstein Formation is a Lower Jurassic geologic formation primarily located in Bavaria, Germany. The Formation appears on places like Bruck in der Oberpfalz, the north-east of the Banz Abbey, Wittelshofen, Regensburg and Bodenwöhr. In the astly foreland it extends from the Kulmbach area via Bayreuth, Creussen, Hirschau and Amberg to Schwandorf. Its southernmost known occurrences seems to be Schwandorf himself and Haselbach, although is also found at Bachhausen, far at the south. Is composed mostly by clusters of clay sandstone and sand-lime stone facies occurs only in the south-east of the northern Bavarian Jura region, for example at the edge of the granite Bavarian forest. On its northern edge, it is noticeably less tectonically disturbed in the Bodenwoehr basin near Sollbach. On the western edge it only appears on the Keilberg and Irlbach . It is a deposit recovered It is the same age as the marine Posidonia Shale, and has been identified as part of it in many sources. The formal relationship between the two layers, however, is undefined; the Posidonia Shale is sometimes described as a different coeval unit or a changed sector, possibly with more terrestrial influence. The extent of the major outcrop of the formation is not clearly delimited. It has been observed in Straßkirchen, Bogen, Straubing; its westernmost points are in Pfatter and a deep outcrop in Keilberg. The name of the Formation derives from the presence of Dactylioceras commune and annulatum, as part of the Monotis-Dactylioceras Bed present along the Lower Toarcian deposits on Bavaria. This Dactylioceras bank was recognized as the facies of the peel-poor bank, and was not destroyed in the Bifrons regression, hence the acummulation of Ammonites and the name of the layer. Is even preserved in the coastal area of the sand deposit, when the regression probably increased the transportability of the water so large that the thin, light Pseudomonotis (=Arctotis) shells were moved, but not the heavy ones, which at that time already contained sands filled of Dactylioceras specimens.
Fulgoridiidae are an extinct family of Jurassic planthoppers. They are the earliest group of planthoppers known, and appear to be a paraphyletic assemblage ancestral to living planthoppers. All currently known species are from Eurasia.
