Biostratigraphy and Palaeoecology

Research Focuses

• Late Cretaceous platy limestones in Northeastern Mexico show all attributes of conservation lagerstätte including soft body preservation of fishes and reptiles. The formation of these ssediments is linked to oceanic anoxic events (OAEs). (German)
• Mesozoic marine reptiles are currently examined at Concentration-Lagerstätte in Gomez Farias (Coahuila, NE-Mexico, Tithonian) and Torres del Paine National Park (South Chile, Lower Cretaceous). (German)
• The giant Pliosaur called Monster of Aramberri. which has been discovered in the Sierra Madre Oriental (NE-Mexico) in 1985 is being excavated since 2000. Research is still ongoing. (German)
• Compared to North American excavation sites Northeastern Mexican dinosaurs are relatively little known. Tracks (footprints) and discoveries of skeletons of at least 15 specimen are currently examined in a new locality in Coahuila (Campanian, Upper Cretaceous). (German)
• The mass extinction towards the end of the Cretaceous period has been a gradual process for numerous groups of organisms and started well before the KT-boundary, with complex reasons. The well known Chicxulub asteroid impact structure in Yucatan stands most probably for an impact before the actual KT-boundary. (German)
• Underwater caves (Cenotes) on Yucatan peninsula (South Mexico) contain extensive animal as well as human skeletal material dating back to the transition between Pleistocene and Holocene. We examine those findings and interpret environmental changes at this time. (German)
• Palaeobiology and Palaeoecology of Cretaceous reefal ecosystems. The use of high-resolution, 3D-reconstructions based on grinding tomography allows detailed insight into Palaeoenvironments, population dynamics and reproduction patterns of rudist ecosystems on both sides of the Atlantic ocean.
• Regional geology and tectonics. Tectonics of the Upper Rhine Graben and its relationship to inherited crustal structures. Structural evolution of the Variscan basement of central Europe. Seismic modelling of the Vrancea subduction zone (Romania). Regional and neotectonics of the Eastern Carpathians.
• Trilobites, Biostratigraphy and Palaeoenvironments of the Middle Cambrian Manuels River Formation at its Type Locality along Manuels River, Conception Bay South, Newfoundland, Canada
• Museographic outreach work. We are in cooperation with Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde in Karlsruhe and museums in Mexico, where our discoveries are constantly presented to the public. (German)
• Systematics, biostratigraphy and biogeography of Cretaceous ammonites of Brazil. Emphasis is on the Aptian–Coniacian faunas of the continental margin basins of north-eastern Brazil, in particular, the Sergipe Basin.
• Systematics, biostratigraphy, ecology and biogeography of Cretaceous marine bivalves and gastropods of Brazil. Emphasis is on the Barremian–Coniacian faunas of the Sergipe Basin.
• Palaeogeography and palaeoceanography of the Cretaceous South Atlantic region. Synthesising biostratigraphic, biogeographic, sedimentological and structural data for the equatorial Atlantic region with the aim of creating a detailed reconstruction of the earliest connections between the North and South Atlantic oceans.
• Cretaceous chronostratigraphic classification. Analysis of the division of the Cretaceous System into series.
• Fossilium Catalogus: Upper Cretaceous Ammonites