Plane

Platanus aceroides, Mittelmiozän

About the object

The sheer variety of fossils to emerge from the Bohlinger Schlucht is amazing. The leaves fossilised within this marlstone slab fell from plane, sweetgum, maple, elm, willow and poplar trees 13.5 million years ago. They fell into water, were buried soon after under mud, which has preserved them until the present-day.
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All of these trees were native to the northern Alpine foothills during the Middle Miocene. During this time, central Europe was warmer then than it is now and great savannahs stretched far and wide throughout the landscape. Lake Constance had not yet been formed and a network of sediment-rich, slowly meandering rivers had formed a vast riverscape, characterised by lakes, gullies formed by lakes, oxbow lakes and shallow, silted up sloughs. Forests proliferated where there was sufficient water, which is why thick, species-rich woodlands grew chiefly in close proximity to bodies of water.

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