God's Nature Reserves - Lagerstätten

Bird feather found in 1860 in Solnhofen, Germany
wikimedia

I call them God's Nature Reserves, because they are regions on Earth where Creator has preserved and protected special samples of His majestic works. These reserves let Adam admire and praise Him and learn more about life upon Earth.

Scientists call them "exceptionally well preserved deposits of ancient life" and have given the German name Lagerstätten.

Particularly fine example of God's Nature Reserves is Solnhofen in Germany. Our Lord went very far there in order to let Adam learn about his masterpiece - the first heavier than air animal that was able to fly. It took some work - God made first exceptionally delicate limestone material into which He then allowed a bird to sink with wings spread. The fine grained limestone replaced the soft organic and other parts of the animal preserving finest its details. One particularly fabulous innovation is feather and the Solnhofen limestone has preserved it for Adam to admire.

The Solnhofen limestone is so fine that it enabled the development of lithography with exceptionally fine color printing. So God actually made a lithography of the early bird for us to admire and allowed it to be discovered only after Darwin had published his book in 1859. In 1860 Adam could already understand the significance of this rare discovery.

Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.
Genesis 2:19-20

Adam named the bird God brought to him to see archeopteryx.

Paleontologists define two types of Lagerstätte 

• Konzentrat-Lagerstätten - exceptional quantity of fossils
• Konservat-Lagerstätten - exceptional preservation of fossils

Devonian blog bookmark
Take a look at the Peripatus-pages maintained by Chris. There you find a select list of Lagerstätten from different geological periods.