Lagerstätten in the context of Agua Nueva Formation

⭐ Core Definition: Lagerstätten

A Fossil-Lagerstätte (German pronunciation: [ˈlaːɡɐˌʃtɛtə] – from Lager 'storage, lair' and Stätte 'place'; pl. Lagerstätten) is a sedimentary deposit that preserves an exceptionally high amount of palaeontological information. Konzentrat-Lagerstätten preserve a high concentration of fossils, while Konservat-Lagerstätten offer exceptional fossil preservation, sometimes including preserved soft tissues. Konservat-Lagerstätten may have resulted from carcass burial in an anoxic environment with minimal bacteria, thus delaying the decomposition of both gross and fine biological features until long after a durable impression was created in the surrounding matrix. Fossil-Lagerstätten span geological time from the Neoproterozoic era to the present.

Worldwide, some of the best examples of near-perfect fossilization are the Cambrian Maotianshan shales and Burgess Shale, the Ordovician Fezouata Biota, Beecher's Trilobite Bed, and Soom Shale, the Silurian Waukesha Biota, the Devonian Hunsrück Slates and Gogo Formation, the Carboniferous Mazon Creek, the Triassic Madygen Formation, the Jurassic Posidonia Shale and Solnhofen Limestone, the Cretaceous Yixian, Santana, and Agua Nueva formations and the Tanis Fossil Site, the Eocene Fur Formation, Green River Formation, Messel Formation and Monte Bolca, the Miocene Foulden Maar and Ashfall Fossil Beds, the Pliocene Gray Fossil Site, and the Pleistocene Naracoorte Caves and La Brea Tar Pits.

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⭐ Core Definition: Lagerstätten
Lagerstätten in the context of Blackberry Hill
Lagerstätten in the context of Lobopodia

Lagerstätten in the context of Blackberry Hill

Blackberry Hill is a Konservat-Lagerstätte of Cambrian age located within the Elk Mound Group in Marathon County, Wisconsin. It is found in a series of quarries and outcrops that are notable for their large concentration of exceptionally preserved trace fossils in Cambrian tidal flats. One quarry in particular also has the distinction of preserving some of the first land animals. These are preserved as three-dimensional casts, which is unusual for Cambrian animals that are only lightly biomineralized. Additionally, Blackberry Hill is the first occurrence recognized to include Cambrian mass strandings of scyphozoans (jellyfish).

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Lagerstätten in the context of Lobopodia

Lobopodians are members of the informal group Lobopodia (from Ancient Greek λοβός [lobós] 'lobe' and πόδα [podá] 'foot'), or the formally erected phylum Lobopoda Cavalier-Smith (1998). They are panarthropods with stubby legs called lobopods, a term which may also be used as a common name of this group as well. While the definition of lobopodians may differ between literatures, it usually refers to a group of soft-bodied, marine (and freshwater) worm-like fossil panarthropods such as Aysheaia and Hallucigenia. However, other genera like Kerygmachela and Pambdelurion (which have features similar to other groups) are often referred to as "gilled lobopodians".

The oldest near-complete fossil lobopodians date to the Lower Cambrian; some are also known from Ordovician, Silurian and Carboniferous Lagerstätten. Some bear toughened claws, plates or spines, which are commonly preserved as carbonaceous or mineralized microfossils in Cambrian strata. The grouping is considered to be paraphyletic, as the three living panarthropod groups (Arthropoda, Tardigrada and Onychophora) are thought to have evolved from lobopodian ancestors.

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