Abra Kadaver: Black humour palaeontology
Humour despite gloomy subject matter: lecture on the death of organisms
On 18 May 2016, 6:30 pm, the Friends of the Museum of Natural History invites you to a special kind of lecture in the TIETZ event hall at Moritzstraße 20. The topic of the evening is the death and fossilisation of organisms. The speaker and researcher Achim Reisdorf approaches this somewhat dark subject with a light touch, black humour and a beer. Admission is free.
Why are dinosaur skeletons often so bizarrely twisted? Can vertebrates explode? Such "fateful questions" are often linked to spectacular explanatory models for the preservation of fossils from world-famous archaeological sites. These and other problems are addressed by a special discipline of palaeontology known as taphonomy, which is also used in forensic medicine and Egyptology. Taphonomy deals with all the processes that begin with the death of organisms. These include the circumstances of death, the decomposition of organic substances, but also the embedding of skeletons in sediment. The latter is regarded as a basic prerequisite for the formation of fossils.
Achim Reisdorf is a researcher, science slammer, music producer and dedicated metal fan. As the scientific director of the "ROCK FOSSILS" exhibition, he will be revealing the secret of the love affair between palaeontology and rock music in an equally entertaining way at the Museum für Naturkunde Chemnitz from November 2016.
For further information please contact:
Dr Thorid Zierold
Museum of Natural History Chemnitz, Deputy Director, Curator of Natural Sciences
Telephone: 0371 488-4552
E-mail: zierold(at)naturkunde-chemnitz.de