Department

After rejecting plans to create a landfill at the Messel Pit in 1990 and purchasing the former mine in June 1991, the state of Hesse decided to engage Senckenberg, with its special expertise at Messel, as the operator of the former mine.

One year later, on June 24, 1992, the Hessen state government and Senckenberg signed a contract concerning the preservation of the Messel Pit as a unique fossil site. Starting on July 1, 1992, Senckenberg became the operator of the Messel Pit under regulations specified by federal mining law. The state and the federal government financially support the operation through the Senckenberg Research Institute.

Starting in 1983, this house, rented from YTONG AG, served as the Senckenberg outpost at the Messel Pit. In 1992, SGN bought the house and through the years converted it into a research station. The station now comprises preparation facilities, including a wet laboratory, an X-ray laboratory, office space for the technicians and scientists, a presentation and meeting room, a caretaker’s apartment, and a lounge and bedrooms for interns.

The research station is the workplace for the preparation and excavation staff as well as the home of the Section Paleoentomology.

Excavation must be planned and excavation permits applied for at the beginning of each year. The digging season of the various institutes begins in May and ends in October or November. In these paleontological excavations, oil-shale blocks are measured with the help of a high-tech GPS-Systems, separated and carefully scanned for fossils.

Since the water-containing oil-shale would fall apart if allowed to dry out in the air, fossil vertebrate specimens need to be embedded in a different substrate, and thus transferred. A specimen is first prepared on one side, which is then covered with artificial resin. After this artificial substrate hardens, the other side of the specimen is prepared. This preparation technique is known as the artificial resin transfer method.

What is so quickly explained in theory requires in practice days or even weeks, depending on the size and state of preservation of the fossil. The preparators use fine metal needles to prepare the fossils. Each movement is monitored through a stereomicroscope so that even the most delicate bone structures can be prepared without being damaged.

Insect fossils are only prepared from one side, and then the small oilshale plate with the fossil is kept in a small box in glycerine.

for Palaeontology students

The Senckenberg Research Institute of Frankfurt organises excavation campaigns during the summer at the Eocene fossil site Messel pit.
In this framework, we offer several internship positions, each for a duration of four weeks. The candidates should have a strong interest in Palaeontology and excavation work. It should be noted that no fossils can be kept privately.

Written applications for these internships are welcome, they should be here until latest 31st January. They should include a cover letter, a CV, a certificate of enrollment at a university in Germany, and an excerpt of your academic regulations/university catalog containing the information that you require this internship for your studies.

Submissions by email to: grube.messel@senckenberg.de or by mail to: Senckenberg Research Station Grube Messel, Markstr. 35, 64409 Messel

Per working day the participants will get an expense allowance of 28,- €.

All participants have access to simple but free accommodation. Arrival and departure, as well as meals, must be covered by the individual.

The Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum Frankfurt am Main, Germany, cordially invites you to the international conference, which will take place from December 8th to 12th, 2025. The conference marks three significant anniversaries surrounding the Konservat-Lagerstätte known as the Messel Pit:

30 years UNESCO World Heritage Status of the Messel Pit Fossil Site (1995)

50 years of Senckenberg excavations at the Messel Pit (1975)

150 years since the first fossil ­was discovered at Messel (December 1875)

The Messel Pit, whose fossiliferous sediments are about 47 million years in age, is arguably the best-preserved ecosystem from the last sustained greenhouse phase of the Earth’s climate. The taxonomic breadth (with 1409 documented taxa so far) and exceptional preservation offer unique insights into a terrestrial ecosystem under climatic conditions that Earth might again experience in coming centuries.

While the conference celebrates Messel and its history of study, it will look at the entire Eocene world in its broadest sense, from geology to paleontology to climate research, with a focus on terrestrial ecosystems. State-of-the-art scientific research will be presented and discussed during the conference in an international context.

Seven main scientific topics were selected for the conference:

• Taphonomy – What processes link a living community to the fossils lying in a drawer?
• Life History and Reproduction – From histology to population dynamics, what can we infer about the life history patterns of ancient species?
• Organismic Diversity – What do we learn about Eocene biodiversity compared to today?
• Interspecific Interactions – From trophic relations to parasitism, how did species interact in Eocene ecosystems?
• Sensory Systems – How did extinct organisms perceive their environment, and how did sensory systems evolve?
• Biogeography – How did species’ geographic distributions shift in response to environmental change, and how did communities change as a result?
• Terrestrial Paleoclimate – How can we reconstruct ancient climates during the Eocene, the warmest interval of the last 66 million years?
• Open Topic – For topics that don’t cleanly fit above

We are delighted that the following persons have confirmed that they will give a keynote presentation:

• Mike Archer: “Australia’s Enigmatic Eocene Mammals from Murgon and the Potential for Riversleigh’s World Heritage Fossil Deposits to Subvert Extinction”
• Michael Engel: “The once and future Earth: Insect community diversity in a fading global greenhouse”
• Alejandra Gandolfo: “Eocene Eden: Forests of the Ancient Southern Continents”
• Friðgeir Grímsson: “Pollen in the spotlight: fossil evidence for the intimate interactions between flowers and animals”
• Stefanie Kaboth-Bahr: “Echoes of the Eocene: Climate Lessons from Messel and Earth’s Last Greenhouse World”
• Maria McNamara: “A new chapter in fossil melanin research: applications to understanding vertebrate evolution”
• Mary T. Silcox: “Cracking Open the Doors of Perception: attempts to reconstruct sensory variables for extinct primates and their kin”

Because the sessions address broad questions in the paleobiology, they will run serially, rather than in
parallel. In addition to four days of scientific sessions, we plan these additional events:

• An evening reception in the Imperial Hall (Kaisersaal) at the “Römer,” or City Hall in Frankfurt, to mark the UNESCO anniversary,
• an evening, public panel discussion at the Senckenberg Museum on the history of Messel, featuring panelists involved in saving the Messel Pit from becoming a landfill (in German language),
• an evening, public panel discussion on what we as a society can learn from Messel in the context of global climate change (in English language),
• a conference dinner,
• a field excursion to the Messel Pit.

Funding

The Volkswagen Foundation has supported and promoted research into the Messel Pit from the very beginning of Senckenberg’s excavation. We are delighted that the Volkswagen Foundation is continuing this partnership by funding this international Senckenberg conference.