Fig 1.
Fish fossils from the Solnhofen lagoons to illustrate the excellent preservation.
(A)—an Upper Tithonian Pycnodontid (Proscinetes elegans) from the Ettling quarry (JME-ETT876), Frankonian Alb [6]. (B)—Thrissops cf. formosus from Ettling (JME-ETT74) with colour pattern preservation [5]. (C)—Species of Leptolepides sprattiformis [7] from Solnhofen (JME-SOS8059). All photos from the second author, with permission from the Jura-Museum Eichstätt.
Fig 2.
Breakdown of a thixotropic structure with shear stress.
Modified from Barnes [27].
Fig 3.
Palaeogeography around the Helvetic shelf in the Upper Jurassic.
Modified from Schuster et al. [30].
Fig 4.
Images of plattenkalk sediments of the Solnhofen archipelago.
(A)—plattenkalks of the Ettling quarry. (B)—photomicrograph of a polished thin slab of a dense plattenkalk layer in cross section from the Blumenberg quarry near Eichstätt, with thin opaque layers rich in (?) organic material. (C) and (D)—surfaces of plattenkalk layers with impressions from former bacterial mats. (E)—backscattered electron SEM image of plattenkalk in cross section from the Ettling quarry to illustrate the high porosity of some plattenkalks and the grain size distribution of calcite particles. (F)—a plattenkalk horizon from a road exposure near the Blumenberg quarry in Eichstätt, with coccolites concentrated on layer surfaces. (G)—energy-dispersive electron image of a micritic limestone from the Ettling quarry; calcite in green, siliclastic material in red. (H)—photomicrograph of a plattenkalk layer surface near Eichstätt, with whitish calcite pseudomorphs. (I) and (J)—(bio)-laminar structures from the Mülheim quarry interpreted as stromatolites (photo courtesy Roland Pöschl 2019).
Fig 5.
A cartoon modified from Viohl [21] to illustrate the compaction of a fish carcass covered by micritic calcite ooze.
For implications on sedimentation rates see text.
Fig 6.
Compaction of micritic calcite suspensions with time as a function of salinity of the pore waters.
Fig 7.
An amplitude sweep profile to measure the rheological properties of three calcite suspensions.
Storage moduli G’ in blue, loss moduli G” in red. For details see text.
Table 1.
Semi-quantitative parameters derived from the rheological results.