This post is one in a series of posts which compares the depositional environment of the late Jurassic lithographic limestones at Solnhofen in Germany based on extracts from Solnhofen: A Study in Mesozoic Palaeontology with observations made at a modern inter-tidal mudflat at Ha Pak Nai, Deep Bay, New Territories, Hong Kong and proposes an inter-tidal mudflat origin for the examples cited.
This post compares comments on mass mortality events at Solnhofen with photographs of the seasonal mass mortality events along the coast at the inter-tidal mudflats at Ha Pak Nai, Deep Bay, Hong Kong.
Extracts from: Solnhofen: A Study in Mesozoic Palaeontology
“The peculiar composition of the waters not only deterred normal marine organisms from living in this environment, but for any organism unfortunate to be washed over the reef and steeped in this solution, death followed very shortly afterwards. Hence the examples of mass mortality and sudden death seen in some of the fossils” (Barthel et al - Page 58)
“In the central and western regions of the plattenkalk area, there are cases where tens or even hundreds of animals of the same species are found strewn over a single bedding plane. Evidently currents carried away local, perhaps seasonal, shoals through gaps in the reef… … In addition, there are numerous well-preserved jellyfish from the Gungolding-Pfalzpaint area” (Barthel et al - Page 90).
Photographs of seasonal mass mortality events at Ha Pak Nai
April/May
Seaweed attached to small rock anchors.
May 2009
April 2010
May 2011
April/May
Sea hare (Bursatella leachi) mass strandings
June
Sea urchins (Salamacis dussumieri)
October
Jellyfish mass strandings
References
Barthel, K.W., Swinburne, N.H.M., and Conway Morris, S. (1994). Solnhofen: A Study in Mesozoic Palaeontology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
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