Chipping away at the past - fossil hunters flock to German valley

By Bernd F. Meier Mar 30, 2010, 7:59 GMT

Eichstaett, Germany - The sound of hammers hitting rock can be heard far and wide. A crisp 'tap, tap, tap' fills the air followed by a brief pause before the incessant chipping begins anew.

Several dozen treasure-hunters have gathered here in the early morning to scour the ground for the fossilised remains of plants and animals which once inhabited the Bavarian Jura mountains between 140 and 150 million years ago.

Back then the mountainous region around Eichstaett, Solnhofen, Weissenburg and Treuchtlingen in this southern German state was situated on the edge of a tropical ocean dotted with small islands. Land and sea were populated by dinosaurs, prehistoric birds and flying reptiles along with giant dragonflies and marine crocodiles.

Fast forward 50 million years and the waters had drained away. Time transformed the coral reefs from the tropical sea into bizarre rock formations which still tower left and right over the Altenmuehl valley.

In this oxygen-deficient water the remains of ancient birds and insects, extinct ammonites, tiny insects, fish and other marine life sank into the muddy beds of what became stagnant lagoons and their images have been preserved to this day in the soft Jurassic limestone.

When quarrying first began in these parts in the 19th century the land around Eichstaett and Solnhofen yielded many fossilised relics of ancient animal life. One of the most spectacular discoveries was the first ever fossil of an ancient part-bird and part-dinosaur known as the Archaeopteryx.

A fossil of one of its feathers was found in the 1860s near Solnhofen by German palaeontologist Hermann von Meyer. Since then a total of eight Archaeopteryx specimens have been found, all within the boundaries of today's Altnmuehltal nature park.

'I suppose you could call it a kind of gold rush,' said Ruth Wallmann, who works at the information centre in the park. 'A lot of the amateur geologists who come here dream of finding a fossilised creature intact, perhaps even another example of the Archaeopteryx,' she said.

Certainly dozens of them are to be found on early summer mornings armed with the obligatory hammer, chisel, trowel and protective goggles.

With wide-brimmed hats as protection against the fierce sun, some spend the entire day on site, hoping for a significant find. Most of the fossil hunters come to the disused quarry at Blumenberg between Easter and the end of September. Since the end of the 1980s the 1.5-hectare site has been a public hunting ground for fossilised remains.

The thrill of the search draws as many as 20,000 visitors a year. 'This excursion into the ancient past is particularly popular with children,' said Ruth Wallmann since fossilised plans and creatures are easy to find. The best examples are kept at the Jura-Museum in nearby Willibaldsburg. Prominent among them is a fossil of a small carnivorous theropod dinosaur from the Late Jurassic period known as Juravenator starki.

The creature measured several dozen centimetres in length and its fossilised remains were found during a scientific excavation in a quarry near Schamhaupten in 1998. 'The Juravenator starki is unique and finding it is like hitting the lottery jackpot,' said museum director Martina Koelbl-Ebert.

A nine-kilometre-long fossil trail connects the Jura Museum with the quarry at Blumenberg and the town of Eichstaett. Signs along the way inform visitors about the native Solnhofer limestone plates which were exported from here to locations all over the world.

They were used for instance during the building of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul and St Stephan's Cathedral in Vienna. Visitors to the Altmuehlental will also find these attractive slabs adorning the roof of many a historic farmhouse in the region.