Odontopteris osmundaeformis fern fossil

Description

This Odontopteris osmundaeformis fern fossil comes from an old coalmine in Thuringia/Germany. Old permian coalmines existed in Thuringia for about hundreds of years. They are small. One after another shut down until the late 1960’s. I have been visiting these mines since 1979. Some of them became protected in the later years and recently. They are now in Nature Reserves or geological monuments by themselfs like the famous Kammerberg mine. It is the typus location for many permian plants and animals. The shaft was blown up in 1979. Later it became a geologiclal monument. On the other hand the fossils became rare, since there is no fresh material brought up. There is mostly only crumble there and a lot is overgrown by vegetation. It does not mean that you cannot find a fossil, but it is harder now.

Odontopteris osmundaeformis is a plant relatet to todays ferns. These plants started to appear in the Carbonian just bevor the Permian. This one here is from the lower Permian and would be about 280 Mio years old. At that time North America and Europe-Asia is one continent. Therefore many fossils from Europe occure also in Northamerica. For the past two decades the scientists of Texas and Thuringia carried out joint excavations in the Permian of Thuringia and Texas. Many new finds where discovered.

The middle axle of the nicely shown Odontopteris osmundaeformis Fern fossil is about 7 cm or 2.75 inches long. The structures and venes in the leafs are clearly visible. Two top leafes of the species are also present in good quality. Parts of branches from Ferns and Calamites are in the front and even more in the back of the slab.

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Additional information