Sunday Tour: Ceratites and Nautilus – the Cephalopods of the Muschelkalk

The ceratites, known as the ammonites of the Muschelkalk, are the most famous Muschelkalk fossils. During the tour, you will be shown this world. Since their mother-of-pearl shell has long since disappeared, their fossilized remains provide a key to understanding sedimentological and geological processes. With the rapid evolutionary changes in their shells, they are the ideal guide fossils for the biostratigraphic division of the Upper Muschelkalk. Additionally, their preservation exemplifies the processes that took place on the seabed of the Muschelkalk sea, until their thin-walled mother-of-pearl shell became a massive stone core. Thus, the ceratites, as well as the less diverse ammonoids or nautiloids, are considered test bodies for understanding the Muschelkalk sediments. However, a look at the far more diverse cephalopod faunas that lived concurrently in the Tethys Ocean also shows that only specialists that adapted to extreme conditions could establish themselves in the Muschelkalk sea.