At first glance, what looks like abstract art turns out to be fossil plant remains from our research collection. Collection technician Melanie Diebert will tell you live on Instagram about her work in our hydrofluoric acid laboratory – and currently in home office. What do fossil plant remains tell us about the flora several hundred million years ago? What contribution does laboratory work make to science? We look forward to your questions!
The peculiarity of the fossil plants collection is its diversity, mainly regarding Carboniferous. Not only the classic parts of the collection with many illustrations and type specimens make up itsvalue, but also many “dormant” scientific treasures. The above plant from the Lower Devonian of Waxweiler in the Eifel is an approximately 400 million year old cladoxylale. Its discovery shows a surprisingly high level of development of the plants already in the Lower Devonian – a time from which previously only very simply organized plants were known about.
Event information
- Thema: Secrets of fossil plants
- Event in German
- with Melanie Diebert, collection technician at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin
- The event takes place live on our Instagram channel and remains online for 24 hours (accessible via smartphone).
Related links
- You can learn more about the numerous science labs at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin here.
- An overview of other digital offers can be found here: For Nature digital.