Thursday night talk - notes

John Nudds told us how cladistic analysis, where you have to look at the most parsimonious line, doesn't sit well with Linnaen nomenclature. Archaeopteryx was perceived as an "Urvogel" until 1995.
In 1996 feathered dinosaurs were found in China which raised the subject of flight, and did the animals fly "ground up", i.e. could they take off, or were they "tree down" gliders?
There is a temporal paradox - only potential ancestors were younger than Archaeopteryx so, was Archaeopteryx the first bird, or just another feathered dinosaur?
In 2009 Hu et al published on Anchiornis Huxleyi, a feathered troodontid therapod dinosaur from 158-164 Ma. This meant that there was a feathered dinosaur older than Archaeopteryx at 150 Ma and solved the paradox.
Hu, D.; Hou, L.; Zhang, L. & Xu, X. (2009). "A pre-Archaeopteryx troodontid theropod from China with long feathers on the metatarsus". Nature. 461 (7264): 640–643. 
In 2011 Xu et al published on Xiaotingia, another feathered dinosaur and this pulled Archaeopteryx into the clade, and out of its position as a bird ancestor
In 2013 Godefroit described a 3rd avian, Aurornis which also fitted into this cladogram and brings Archaeopteryx back into the avialae but not as the most basal.
See the cladogram in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiaotingia

Cladogram following the results of a phylogenetic study by Lefèvreet al., 2017.^[6]

Pennaraptora	†Oviraptorosauria   Paraves     Scansoriopterygidae       †Xiaotingia     †Yixianosaurus               †Pedopenna     †Aurornis         †Serikornis     †Eosinopteryx           †Anchiornis   Eumaniraptora Deinonychosauria   †Troodontidae     †Dromaeosauridae     Avialae   †Archaeopteryx       †Rahonavis       †Balaur       †Jeholornithidae     Euavialae

However, Archaeopteryx was the first avialan with symmetrical feathers and in 2014 Foth and Rauhut used #11 to base a cladogram on feather morphology - it had assymetrical wing feathers. Looks as though there was convergent evolution of flight, both ground up, and tree down.
Foth and Rauhut (2017) described #4 (Haarlem specimen, and the oldest Archaeopteryx, found in the older eastern basins) as a new avian theropod, the first member of the Anchiornothids from Europe.

In 2018 Rauut described #12 (which we will see on Saturday at Dinosauria) - a lovely specimen and older, but it doesn't add much to the story.

Also Kundrat and Nudds did a skull scan of #8 which was 0.5 Ma younger and would have had greater flying ability.

And finally (in 2019, for the time being) Rauhut has described #13 Alcmonavis

Guzenhausen, Muhlheim and Harthof

Fossilien und Steindruck Museum; where does the name limestone come from?

This museum, formerly the Maxberg Museum, is in Guzenhausen. Once again we found splendid fossils, beautifully preserved and prepared but first we saw some lovely exhibits such as this "pietra dura" style floor in the Ottobeuren monastery, and a coat of arms.

Coat of arms in stone

The Kaisersaal in Ottobeuren monastery

There were also some lovely examples of natural stone - liesegang rings, manganese dendrites, and also stone carved to make use of natural features

Faulted liesegang rings

Manganese dendrites

Carving using the natural markings of the stone

Limestone used in the Roman defensive border, the "Limes", demonstrated its use over two millenia.

Limes exhibit

I've wondered about the etymology of lime/limestone and Limes: which came first? Limestone is called that because it is a stone which creates lime when burnt.
Was this stone used to build the Limes, and burnt to use for whitewash and is that why it was called "Limes stone"?
The Roman noun limes could denote various types of boundary; Roman walls and forts were generally whitewashed using burnt lime to create "limewash" as our own grandparents did.

The fossils

Far too many examples (and loads of photos) to show all of them but some that I found particularly striking were these:

This shows the incredibly good, and rare, preservation of musculature in a jellyfish

A large cuttlefish - another mainly soft bodied fossil

Crinoid head and stem

As well as soft bodied animals there were hard bodied fossils including lovely crinoids.

Crinoid cup - again amazing detail!

Something else particularly intriguing was the various tool marks on some bedding planes.

Ammonite rollmarks

More ammonite rollmarks

Wave movement of a twig on a floating branch

There were also examples of lithographic printing and the blocks from which prints were made

Lithographic block - I liked the sardine tin lables!

Bank notes, playing cards and matchbox labels!

An amazing amount of work went into producing these labels in the days before computers!

Fossilienbesuchersteinbruch Muhlheim

This was a convenient venue for lunch as there were tables and chairs, and also coffee to buy!

 As before this is geared up to visitors - amateur geologists and collectors, and is in the overlying Mörnsheim Formation.

Plenty of informative information boards

Bavarian TV filming the "launch" of #13 Alcmonavis poeschlii, found in the quarry by Roland Poeschl

The Berger Museum at Harthof

Once again, some wonderful fossils to examine, so just a selection here

A crustacean

A lovely ammonite - shame about the shadow :(

A fish catching its dinner

Finally we had a slightly damp walk to the adjacent quarry to see what we could find. There were particularly nice manganese/iron dendrites here and also some intriguing slumping in the bedding.

We had a summary talk from John in the evening after our three days of museums and quarries. Tomorrow we are off to Nordlingen to examine the meteorite crater and deposits.

Solnhofen. the Altmuhl Valley and Haardt Quarry

The Altmuhl Valley

The Altmühl area during the Jurassic

We went the "pretty way", up the valley, rather than the direct road as this gave us a view of the late Jurassic (Oxfordian) reefs on the valley sides, built up by sponges and cyanobacteria.

These reefs divided the Solnhofen lagoon into subcircular basins in which carbonate mud was deposited, forming the plattenkalks which are so good for lithography and also for preserving fossils in fine detail.

Crags on the far side of the valley

Driving up the Altmühl valley 

Fossil sponge

The biohermal - reef - limestone forms crags along the valley but it isn't easy to find a place for four vehicles to stop safely.

We managed it eventually and started looking for, and finding, fossil material, particularly enlightening for those of us who were unfamiliar with its nature!

John pointing out reef material in the bioherm crags

Burgermeister Muller Museum, Solnhofen

By a river bridge as we approached Solnhofen

A clue that we are in Archaeopteryx-Land is the sculpture of a very large ammonite, which appears to have swallowed an ammonite!

Dr John Nudds and Herr Dr Martin Röper

On arrival we were greeted by Dr Martin Röper who showed us some of the particularly noteworthy exhibits.

One of our group, Gill Toney, outside the museum
with Dr John Nudds

Archaeopteryx #7 - the Munich specimen

The Munich Archaeopteryx bavarica #7 is now thought to be a juvenile of A. lithographica. It is on loan here from the Bavarian State Collection which we saw in Munich yesterday.

Archaeopteryx #6 Solnhofen specimen

Archaeopteryx #6, known as the Solnhofen specimen and found in 1988, is the largest known specimen but said to have been poorly prepared. 

For comparison, here's a Pterodactyl
from Solnhofen Plattenkalk

#9, the "Chicken Wing"

#9 which was found in 2004, is a partial wing with faint feather impressions and fondly known as the Chicken Wing!

A captivating hologram of a
fully feathered Archaeopteryx 

We spent ages watching, and videoing, an amazing animated hologram of a fully feathered Archaeopteryx.

There were plenty of other lovely specimens in the museum as well, including this marine sponge, very similar to what we had seen in the reef mounds on the way to Solnhofen. 

Marine sponge, Ammonella quadrata, from the western Eichstatt archipelago

The decapod is interesting - one of our group found a similar one but from a younger rock formation, later in the week.

A crab-like decapod Eryon from Langenaltheim

Other delights included fish, insects, plants, and medusas

A small "sprat-like" bony fish

Death assemblage of small sprat-like fish. Possibly they swam into anoxic water?

Echinoid

A Coral Fish - Arduafrons priminoris, 149.7 Ma old,
that inhabited the coral reefs around Eichstätt

Horseshoe crab with a "death trail" - these
winding trails often have the animal that
created them at the end. Really hard to
photograph because of reflections!

A dragonfly Mesolibelle

Beautifully detailed plant fossils such as this conifer that grew on the islands around Mornsheim

And I loved these jelly fish - you could see exactly how they had been draped over the ripples and presumably then dried out before being covered with more sediment  at the next high tide!

Upstairs there was a lithography exhibition - the Solnhofen plattenkalk was ideal for this because of the even, fine-grained nature. 

Mason's workshop for preparing printing slabs

Plate and print of a map. Amazing to think that this detail had to be created by hand, in reverse!
We take printing so much for granted now.

The stages in printing a colour picture by lithography

Lunch at the Alteschule

Retail therapy

After a bit of retail therapy across the road from the museum we drove to the nearby Alte Schule Biergarten where Martin had booked lunch for our group and it was a great recommendation! Lovely food, trouble free organisation, and a delightful venue.

Lunch at the Alte Schule

Diversion to a Friedhof

We drove to Langenaltheim where Eduard Opitsch is buried and, possibly, Archaeopteryx #3 with him as it has never been seen since his death in 1991!




We went on to the Haardt Quarry for collecting - something I don't find easy now - all that bending - but I did find a fish fossil, one of the little sprats (Leptolepides) which I'm going to have a go at cleaning up. "Prima!" said Martin when I showed him !

The quarry, like others in the area, is set up for amateur collectors with specimens for sale, hammers for hire, and brooms, wheelbarrows and shovels for clearing away debris!

One of the group, Terry, found a lovely decapod crustacean Eryops which he left with Martin as it was too large to take home!

Terry's crustacean