Tag Archives: Messel Pit

Messel Pit still provides endless fossils and celebrates several anniversaries in 2025

By | January 22, 2025

The Messel Pit is celebrating several anniversaries in 2025 and is once again in the spotlight of research with a new special issue of the journal "Palaeobiodiversity and Palaeoenvironments." The publication presents current findings on fossils from the Hessian fossil site and comparable locations. The studies reveal the extraordinary diversity of the approximately 47-million-year-old fossils in the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Messel Pit. Highlights include… Read more »

Messel Pit: not all fossils recovered yet

By | January 13, 2025

Senckenberg researchers have revealed in a newly published study that a total of 1.409 different taxa – various types of organisms – have been recovered from the 47-million-year-old oil shale deposits in the Messel Pit. The team explains that biodiversity during the Eocene epoch in Messel was higher than in present-day Central Europe, but lower than in modern tropical habitats. [ Continue reading »]