Fieldwork photo of the week

Some parts of the Madygen succession are particularly rich in plant remains inluding calamite stems accumulated in thin, sometimes coaly siltstone layers.

Fieldwork Photo of the Week

Madygen river oasis. Close to the point where the river cuts through a Paleozoic limestone massif (on the left), forming a deep gorge.

Fieldwork Photo of the Week

Badlands of the SW outcrop area (Urochishche Madygen). Reddish colours mark the "Variegated Member" of the Madygen Formation. In the distance: tree tops of the Madygen river oasis.

Fieldwork Photo of the Week

Colourful Jurassic strata. Who can see the unconformity?

Permotriassic entomofaunal change + the Madygen

Dmitry E. Shcherbakov from Moscow is one of the paleobiologists studying the very group of beings for which Madygen really is a lagerstätte: insects.

Some of his 2008 papers in the Moscovian Paleontological Journal and Alavesia, a relatively new journal for fossil insects, can be found as .pdfs on the library page of the International Palaeoentomological Society (IPS).

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Shcherbakov, D.E. 2008. Insect recovery after the Permian/Triassic crisis. Alavesia 2: 125-131. [pdf]

Shcherbakov, D.E. 2008. On Permian and Triassic insect faunas in relation to biogeography and the Permian–Triassic crisis. Paleontological Journal 42 (1): 15-31. [pdf]

The Alavesia paper outlines a three phase development of Triassic entomofaunas, beginning with
(I) a low-diversity episod of P/T recovery dominated by Paleozoic insect groups, followed by
(II) a summit phase with typical Triassic taxa in the Anisian-Carnian, and, with a decline in diversity, ending in
(III) a phase dominated by Late Mesozoic elements, especially featuring new aquatic insect groups.
Shcherbakov suggests, that each of the transitions began in the humid low latitudes and occurred later in the higher latitudes, i.e. the boundaries between those three stages are diachronous.

In the Paleontological Journal paper Dmitry Shcherbakov looks at the insect diversity of Late Carboniferous to Triassic localities, counting the proven occurrences of insect families per stage ('stage' as a chronostratigraphic unit). He illustrates the change in aquatic/ terrestrial, phytophages/ predators, modern/ ancient groups and explains the ecological, evolutionary, and biogeographic background of diversity fluctuations.

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Shcherbakov, D.E. 2008. Madygen, Triassic Lagerstätte number one, before and after Sharov. Alavesia 2: 113-124.[pdf]

This review paper begins with a recount of the research history of the Madygen Formation as a Triassic fossil locality, beginning with the geological fieldwork in the 1930s (by Kochnev) which led to the first finds of a fossil flora, classified as Triassic, and to the introduction of the Madygen strata as a separate stratigraphic unit.

In detail the role of paleoentomologist Alexander G. Sharov is recognized, who lead five field expeditions between 1962 and 1966 to a fossiliferous point in the northern Madygen outcrop area (Dzhailoucho). These campaigns turned out as the most successful with regard to the number of recovered insect specimens and other fossils. The historical part is followed by a short overview of the flora and non-insect fauna.

The main part is a synopsis of the particular insect fauna of Madygen. Besides the exquisite state of preservation, several figures illustrate why Madygen really is a lagerstätte: Members of twenty insect orders and 96 out of 106 insect families known from the Ladinian/Carnian have been reported from the Madygen Formation.

In this order beetles, cockcroaches, and homopterans represent the most abundant groups. Among rarer groups are certain specialities, such as the most diverse assemblage of titanopterans. Modern insect orders are represented by several groups of early dipterans and the earliest hymenopterans (belonging to the group of sawflies).

Fieldwork Photo of the Week

In the back you can see a tectonic contact: Massive limestones are thrusted over some less competent schist units and/or Madygen sediments. Thanks to Juliane for that photo.

Fieldwork Photo of The Week

Morning time at the digging site: Having contemplated the vast landscape bare of human presence but sprenkled with the litter of a forgotten civilization graduate student Jan Fischer decides on the right moment for starting his daily business of not moving to many a rock at once and feigning the impression of having survived another day in this vale of tears only at the close of livelong fatigue and exhaustion...

Fieldwork Photo of the Week

See the spy in the back? Some Kyrgyz aborigines can't help being distrustful...

I'm thankful to Juliane Hentschke who safed us these moments and a number of bones.

Fieldwork Photo of the Week

Excursion group 2008 and Madygen badlands, close to the boundary between "Variegated Member" (T3) and "Upper Graycolored Member" (T4) of the Madygen Formation (subdivision of Dobruskina 1995).
The transitional zone includes sandstone horizons with large-scale x beds.

Fieldwork Photo of the Week

Two pix from the field camp:

The clubroom buildung, now fully erect and in use. In green: Our cook Ludmilla from Osh.

The penultimate act of packing and repacking one day before the end of the expedition.

Fieldwork Photo of the Weak

The Neverending Outcrop: Younger stratigraphic succession near Madygen, SW Kyrgyzstan.
The greyish-brownish Madygen Formation is overlayn uncomformably by varicoloured continental Jurassic strata which in turn are separated by an uncomformity from reddish deposits of the facially diverse Cretaceous including massive conglomeratic banks.


Paleogene: A yellowish marine succession containing mass occurrences of oysters and massive carbonates is followed by younger continental deposits of the Tertiary.

Note the roofs of premises belonging to the village of Madygen.

Fieldwork Photo of the Week

You can see the rise of our club room one day after the arrival in Madygen. Gas bottles, sample boxes, and limestone boulders are integral parts of the construction.

Borrowed this photo of a tent erection from this year's Madygen participant Daniel Rutte, who started an exchange semester in Golden, Colorado, shortly after the field trip and after becoming a Bachelor in Freiberg (but only 'of Science' unless I'm much mistaken).

Rock-paper-scissors

Unpacking of the 2008 finds in a rather relaxed "subbotnik".
This year's fieldwork season turned out to be a good one for plants and for Philippe Moisan Tapia, palaeobotanist and graduate student at the University of Münster - he is doing his dissertation on the Madygen flora.

Fieldwork Photo of the Week

Blue-collar workers: undergrads Daniel & Juliane plus me.