Fossil of the Year 2023 for object from the Petrified Forest

On Friday, 27 October, from 5 p.m., the Fossil of the Year 2023, which was selected by the Palaeontological Society, will be presented at a festive event at the Museum für Naturkunde Chemnitz. It is Medullosa stellata, a fossilised seed plant with fern foliage from the Chemnitz Petrified Forest.

Prof Johannes Vogel, Director General of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, who proposed the Medullosa stell ata award, will give the keynote speech. Dr Ludwig Luthardt, who was the first author to publish the description of the fossil in 2022 and is currently leading a research project on Medullosa stellata at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, will then introduce the topic. The Chemnitz duo Tuya Klangwerk will provide musical accompaniment for the evening, while the Friends of the Museum für Naturkunde Chemnitz will contribute to the guests' physical well-being.

Representatives of the media are also cordially invited.

On the evening, the Museum of Natural History will unveil a walk-in display case in which parts of the sensational find from 2009/2010 will be on show. It was only thanks to this find from the scientific excavation in Chemnitz-Hilbersdorf (2008 to 2011) that it was possible to reconstruct the plant as a whole. An eight-minute film, which is celebrating its premiere, sheds light on the background to Medullosa stellata with interviews and original footage. A specially created digital reconstruction model of the plant can also be seen for the first time.

It is a special honour for the Chemnitz fossil site that, after the horsetail tree Arthropitys bistriata in 2010 and the giant centipede Arthropleura armata in 2015, Medullosa stellata is now the third fossil to be found in the Chemnitz Petrified Forest to be awarded the title "Fossil of the Year".

Palaeontology researches the history of life on earth. Using fossils and layers of rock, it traces the evolution of organisms and their environment, reconstructs biological adaptations to different living conditions, finds evidence of past climate changes and investigates the causes and effects of speciation processes and mass extinction events. Palaeontology is therefore the key to understanding today's biodiversity and the interaction between animate and inanimate nature.

The Palaeontological Society was founded in Greifswald in 1912 and is now the largest association of professional palaeontologists, collectors and amateur researchers in the German-speaking world. To draw attention to fossils that are of particular scientific value, the Palaeontological Society has chosen a find or an entire species as Fossil of the Year since 2008.

In 2023, this choice fell on Medullosa stellata from the Chemnitz Petrified Forest. This fossilised tree species, which was described by Bernhard Cotta in 1832, remained a mystery to scientists for almost two centuries. It was recognised relatively quickly that the wood described in 1849 under the name Myeolxylon was actually frond stems attached to the Medullosa trunk. However, the foliage attached to these frond stems remained unclear until the scientific excavation by the Museum für Naturkunde Chemnitz. Only a complex find, which was discovered in 2009 and recovered in 2010, provided certainty: fern-like fronds of the Alethopteris schneideri type were attached to the trunk of the Medullosa stellata.

Medullosa belongs to fern seeds, an extinct group of seed plants with fern foliage. We now know that ten fronds up to 3.5 metres long were attached to the relatively thin but very woody trunk. A complex network of vertically and horizontally connected vascular bundles in the Medullosa stem and the Myeloxylon fronds ensured that the plant was able to absorb and store large quantities of water. Leaves with dense veins enabled a transpiration rate on a par with today's flowering plants. Medullosa probably played a decisive role in the ecosystem of the subtropical forest that existed 291 million years ago in the Chemnitz area: As the climate became drier and more seasonal, meaning that there was an increasing alternation of rainy and dry seasons, the medulloses, with their special ability to absorb and release water, created an ever-moist oasis in which other plants could thrive and numerous animals could live.

Often referred to as the "Pompeii of the Permian", the Chemnitz Petrified Forest offers a unique snapshot of a 291-million-year-old ecosystem. The abundance and excellent preservation of the finds lead experts to speak of a fossil deposit that is unrivalled worldwide. The centuries-long tradition of research can be traced from the mayor of Chemnitz, Georgius Agricola, who coined the term fossil in 1546, to the citizen scientists of the 19th and early 20th centuries and the international scientific networks of today.