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The Chemnitz petrified forest is a petrified forest in
Petrified trunks of tree ferns, seed ferns, conifers as well as Cordaitales and different species of Calamites.
The primeval plants were repeatedly discovered from the 17th century ongoing till today and mostly at Hilbersdorf, today a district of Chemnitz. In the mid-18th century, gemstone prospector David Frenzel (1691–1772) found numerous examples of this wood in the hills in and around Chemnitz. One of his 1751 finds is one of the few petrified wood specimens still possessing its roots (Megadeudron saxonicum). This petrified wood was transported to Dresden (Zwinger, for exhibition in the Roayal Saxon Museum). Later a collector, the Hilbersdorf contractor Güldner, bequeathed some of the petrified logs to King Albert Museum in Chemnitz. The first director of the Museum, Johann Traugott Sterzel (1841–1914), took over the investigation of the findings. The Sterzeleanum in the museum (the petrified forest display) is dedicated to him.
The petrified forest was formed in connection with the eruption of the Zeisigwald
Chemnitz
Chemnitz (; from 1953 to 1990: Karl-Marx-Stadt (); ; ) is the third-largest city in the Germany, German States of Germany, state of Saxony after Leipzig and Dresden, and the fourth-largest city in the area of former East Germany after (East Be ...
, Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
, that is part of the Early Permian Leukersdorf Formation.
Most of the trunks are exhibited in the Museum of Natural History in Chemnitz inside of Kulturkaufhaus Tietz, including slices of trunks with polished edges. A small collection can be seen also on Zeißstraße (Hilbersdorf, 1911). From April 4, 2008, to Fall 2011, an excavation in Hilbersdorf was held to find and research more trunks. Their researchers discovered, amongst others, '' Arthropitys bistriata'', a type of Calamites, giant horsetails that are ancestors of modern horsetails, found on this location with never seen multiple branches. Many more plants and animals from this excavation are still in an ongoing research. This exceptional find received the 2010 Fossil of the Year award of the German Paleontological Society. It was integrated into the permanent exhibition.
History
Georgius Agricola
Georgius Agricola (; born Georg Bauer; 24 March 1494 – 21 November 1555) was a German Humanist scholar, mineralogist and metallurgist. Born in the small town of Glauchau, in the Electorate of Saxony of the Holy Roman Empire, he was b ...
(1494–1555) described petrified trees in the Chemnitz area first at 1546.
Petrified trunks of tree ferns, seed ferns, conifers as well as Cordaitales and different species of Calamites.
The primeval plants were repeatedly discovered from the 17th century ongoing till today and mostly at Hilbersdorf, today a district of Chemnitz. In the mid-18th century, gemstone prospector David Frenzel (1691–1772) found numerous examples of this wood in the hills in and around Chemnitz. One of his 1751 finds is one of the few petrified wood specimens still possessing its roots (Megadeudron saxonicum). This petrified wood was transported to Dresden (Zwinger, for exhibition in the Roayal Saxon Museum). Later a collector, the Hilbersdorf contractor Güldner, bequeathed some of the petrified logs to King Albert Museum in Chemnitz. The first director of the Museum, Johann Traugott Sterzel (1841–1914), took over the investigation of the findings. The Sterzeleanum in the museum (the petrified forest display) is dedicated to him.
Creation of the petrified forest
The petrified forest was formed in connection with the eruption of the Zeisigwald volcano
A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface.
On Earth, volcanoes are most oft ...
in the lower Permian
The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years, from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.902 Mya. It is the s ...
and dates back about 291 million years. The trees were uprooted or snapped off by the eruption and the amount of tephra
Tephra is fragmental material produced by a Volcano, volcanic eruption regardless of composition, fragment size, or emplacement mechanism.
Volcanologists also refer to airborne fragments as pyroclasts. Once clasts have fallen to the ground, ...
, much like the trees caught in the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens
In March 1980, a series of volcanic explosions and pyroclastic flows began at Mount St. Helens in Skamania County, Washington, United States. A series of Phreatic eruption, phreatic blasts occurred from the summit and escalated until a major ...
. The trunks were then covered with hot tephra
Tephra is fragmental material produced by a Volcano, volcanic eruption regardless of composition, fragment size, or emplacement mechanism.
Volcanologists also refer to airborne fragments as pyroclasts. Once clasts have fallen to the ground, ...
. In the following of years, the silicic acid included in the tephra ensured the fossilization of Permian plants, preserving them until today.
Fauna
The varanopid '' Ascendonanus'' As well as reptiles, amphibians (like Aistopod), gastropods and arthropods, including the trigonotarbid '' Permotarbus'' and scorpion '' Opsieobuthus'', diplopod such as '' Arthropleura'' are known from the forest.References
Further reading
*External links
* {{coord, 50, 49, 51, N, 12, 55, 22, E, type:landmark, display=title Petrified forests Paleontology in Germany History of Chemnitz Culture in Chemnitz