Grube Messel Pit, grid square D10, 4.9-5.31 m below alpha (Eocene of Germany)

Where: Hessen, Germany (49.9° N, 8.8° E: paleocoordinates 46.9° N, 4.8° E)

• coordinate based on nearby landmark

• small collection-level geographic resolution

When: Messel Formation, MP 11 (48.6 - 40.4 Ma)

• bed-level stratigraphic resolution

Environment/lithology: crater lake; lithified claystone

• "A drilling project conducted in 2001 showed that the former Lake Messel was a maar lake, which is a small deep lake that had its origin in an explosive volcanic eruption. The former lake basin had an original diameter of about 1.5 km, and a depth of about 300–400 m (Harms, 2002; Felder & Harms, 2004)."
• "The fossils are embedded in darkly coloured, finely laminated claystone sediments rich in organic substances (‘oil shale’), which were deposited in a meromictic lake (e.g. Goth, 1990)."

Size classes: macrofossils, mesofossils

Preservation: adpression, soft parts

Collected in 1992; reposited in the SMF

Collection methods: quarrying

• Repository: now FIS, Forschungsstation Grube Messel

Primary reference: T. Hörnschemeyer. 1994. Ein fossiler Tenebrionide Ceropria? messelense n. sp. (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae: Diaperinae) aus dem Mitteleozän der Grube Messel bei Darmstadt. Courier For­schungsinstitut Senckenberg 170:75-83 [M. Clapham/M. Clapham]more details

Purpose of describing collection: taxonomic analysis

PaleoDB collection 163152: authorized by Matthew Clapham, entered by Matthew Clapham on 15.10.2014

Creative Commons license: CC BY (attribution)

Taxonomic list

Show authors, comments, and common names
Insecta
 Coleoptera - Tenebrionidae
? Ceropria messelense
? Ceropria messelense Hörnschemeyer 1994 darkling beetle
SMF MeI 4150, 4169