page_title: Lagerstätte
hierarchical_section_title: Lagerstätte
caption_attribution_description: English: Diplacanthus acus, an exceptionally well preserved acanthodian fish (10 cm long) from the Late Devonian Waterloo Farm lagerstätte in the Eastern Cape, South Africa
context_page_description: A Lagerstätte is a sedimentary deposit that exhibits extraordinary fossils with exceptional preservation—sometimes including preserved soft tissues. These formations 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. 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 Devonian Hunsrück Slates and Gogo Formation, the Carboniferous Mazon Creek, the Jurassic Solnhofen limestone, the Cretaceous Santana, Yixian and Tanis formations, the Eocene Green River Formation, and the Miocene Foulden Maar.
context_section_description: A Lagerstätte (German: [ˈlaːɡɐˌʃtɛtə], from Lager 'storage, lair' Stätte 'place'; plural Lagerstätten) is a sedimentary deposit that exhibits extraordinary fossils with exceptional preservation—sometimes including preserved soft tissues. These formations 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. 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 Devonian Hunsrück Slates and Gogo Formation, the Carboniferous Mazon Creek, the Jurassic Solnhofen limestone, the Cretaceous Santana, Yixian and Tanis formations, the Eocene Green River Formation, and the Miocene Foulden Maar.
caption: Diplacanthus acus, an exceptionally well preserved acanthodian fish (10 cm long) from the Late Devonian Waterloo Farm lagerstätte in the Eastern Cape, South Africa.
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