
Steffen TrümperUniversity of Münster | WWU · Institut für Geologie und Paläontologie und Geomuseum
Steffen Trümper
Dr. rer. nat.
Working on new projects and collaborations.
About
54
Publications
12,866
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Introduction
I’m a geologist/palaeontologist and reconstruct late Paleozoic continental ecosystems and their taphonomic pathways. I address this objective by using a multidisciplinary approach, i.e., field work, lithofacies analysis, stratigraphy, anatomical studies on fossils and microscopic analysis of sediment petrography and mineralising agents.
Education
January 2019 - December 2021
Museum für Naturkunde Chemnitz+Technische Universität Bergakademie Freiberg
Field of study
- PhD project funded by the German National Science Foundation (DFG)
September 2016 - December 2018
Museum für Naturkunde Chemnitz
Field of study
- Scientific volunteer
October 2013 - September 2016
Publications
Publications (54)
In-situ fossil forests are valuable biogenic archives for the structure and setting of paleocommunities and the ecology of their organisms. Here, we present the first trees preserved in growth position in their embedding strata from the Kungurian (lower Permian) Athesian Volcanic Group, Northern Italy—one of the most extensive volcanic successions...
Fossil stromatolites enclosing structurally preserved land plant remains have rarely been documented and studied in detail. Permineralized woody Tylodendron sp. conifer axes (slender stems, branches) from a lacustrine sedimentary sequence in the lower Permian fossil Lagerstätte of Manebach (Thuringian-Forest Basin, central Germany) are frequently s...
Wetlands are important to continental evolution, providing both arenas and refugia for emerging and declining biotas. This significance and the high preservation potential make the resulting fossiliferous deposits essential for our understanding of past and future biodiversity. We reconstruct the trophic structure and age of the early Permian Maneb...
By colonizing drylands, plants fundamentally changed continental deposition and, thus, intensified the interaction between life and sediments. Fossil large woody debris in epiclastic strata is a key archive of this environmental turnover, although its interpretation remains challenging due to taphonomic biases. We review voluminous fluvial red-bed...
The Early Pennsylvanian Xiaheyan entomofauna (Ningxia, China) is among the earliest assemblages of winged insects known so far, and therefore provides an essential input on deciphering the early diversification of this group. Despite its evolutionary significance, both the age and depositional environment remained poorly constrained.
Here, we prese...
Since its appearance on land in the early Paleozoic, life has conquered the continents with astonishing diversity. From the deepest caves to the atmosphere, numerous evolutionary innovations such as active flight or seeds paved the way for life beyond water. However, we still have a rough idea of the timelines of terrestrialization, mainly because...
The evolutionary success of the Holometabola was primarily related to drastic changes in body structures between larvae, pupae and adults. This enabled the Holometabola to exploit a wide range of habitats during different ontogenetic stages. A unique adaptation of tiny, grub-like holometabolous larvae is leaf mining, which provides access to inner...
The book "Die Rotliegend-Fauna des Thüringer Waldes" was published in April 2024 as a special publication by Semana in A4 format by the Natural History Museum Schleusingen (editors: Ralf Werneburg and Joerg W. Schneider). 18 authors present the fauna of the Upper Carboniferous and Lower Permian of the Thuringian Forest Basin (Germany) in 19 chapter...
Die kohleführende Manebach-Formation zählt zu den weltweit bedeutendsten Archiven kontinentaler Ökosysteme des frühen Perms. Trotz ihrer bis in das späte 17. Jahrhundert zurückreichenden Erforschung sind Teile der Abfolge noch wenig verstanden. Zu den jüngsten Nachweisen zählen mikrobielle Gesteine, die im Rahmen eines von der Deutschen Forschungsg...
The sedimentary succession of the Sinich/Sinigo Basin is one of the oldest sedimentary intercalations of the Cisuralian (lower Permian) Athesian Volcanic Group of the Bozen/Bolzano area. The plant remains that were deposited in its alluvial and lacustrine sediments are middle Kungurian in age and are characterized by a wide variety of preservation...
For the first time, determinable branchiosaurids have been found in the
Manebach Formation of the Thuringian Forest, central Germany. They
belong to the species Apateon dracyiensis, which also occurs in the older
Ilmenau and the younger Lower Goldlauter formations. The presumed
remains of a stomach show well preserved meal remains: three small
bran...
Reconstructing palaeobiodiversity over time is a supreme object of palaeontological research. The resulting information improves our understanding of past interactions between the biosphere and geosphere and, therewith, contributes decisively to assessing present and future environ-mental developments. However, the processes associated with fossili...
Freizeitforscherinnen und -forscher haben die Chemnitzer Naturkunde von Beginn an entscheidend geprägt uns stets bereichert. Dieser Wissenschaftstradition folgend startete das Museum für Naturkunde Chemnitz 2019 ein Forschungsprojekt zur Entschlüsselung der Fossilwerdung von Wäldern unter Einbezug von Bürgerinnen
und Bürgern. Die Erfahrungen und Er...
Freizeitforscherinnen und -forscher haben die Chemnitzer Naturkunde von Beginn an entscheidend geprägt und stets bereichert. Dieser Wissenschaftstradition folgend startete das Museum für Naturkunde Chemnitz 2019 ein Forschungsprojekt zur Entschlüsselung der Fossilwerdung von Wäldern unter Einbezug von Bürgerinnen und Bürgern. Die Erfahrungen und Er...
Zusammenfassung von Grabungsergebnissen im Unterperm von Crock (Südthüringen)
Seit über einem Jahrhundert gilt die Region Winnweiler am Donnersberg als klassisches Fundgebiet strukturerhaltener, verkieselter Hölzer. Auf Grundlage von Sammlungsmaterial und einer Grabung charakterisiert diese Arbeit die Sedimentarchitekturen und Stratigraphie der Wirtsgesteine und erhellt die Erhaltung, botanische Natur und Fossilwerdung der i...
Manebach in central Germany is among the classical sites to study aquatic and terrestrial biotas of early Permian coal-forming wetlands. This contribution documents the stratigraphy, preservation and systematic affiliation of an ichthyofauna from lacustrine black shales of the Manebach Formation, Thuringian-Forest Basin, collected during an excavat...
Museen bilden die entscheidenden Schnittstellen zwischen Öffentlichkeit und Wissenschaft. Aus dieser Position ergeben sich wertvolle Potenziale, u. a. zum Sammlungsmanagement und zum Umgang mit Entscheidungsträgern. Anhand aktueller Projekte zeigt der Vortrag, wie „Citizen Sciences“ und ein Fundament aus 300 Jahren Wissenschaftstradition in Chemnit...
Since the Middle Devonian woody debris has formed a significant component in vegetated continental ecosystems and depositional settings. Compared to other plant tissues, lignified matter has greater mechanical stability and chemical resistance, thanks to its composition and structure. As a result, wood can attain high retention times in depositiona...
The conquest of seasonally dry landscapes by plants represented a milestone of terrestrialization and involved considerable turnovers of continental depositional systems, the atmosphere and global geochemical cycles. Two evolutionary steps are regarded crucial for this process with the first already executed in the Devonian by the evolution of wood...
Silicified woods found on fields near Winnweiler, SW-Germany, provide unique three-dimensional insights into the anatomy of late Paleozoic gymnosperms. However, little is known about the fossils’ origin impeding further research. Based on an excavation at the Zuckerwald locality, we characterise the host rocks and palaeobotanical nature of the petr...
Silicified wood is one of the most frequent and insightful records of ancient life since the Devonian. Although cellular anatomy is often preserved in great detail, alterations of organic matter occur during fossilization modifying tissue properties. Due to taphonomic pathways, plant tissues experience multiple changes, which may cause a tissue-vol...
Reinsdorf near Zwickau is one of the most important sites of the Rotliegend flora in the Chemnitz Basin and type locality of stratigraphically significant plant fossils. The historical site has been rediscovered, partially exposed and geologically documented. The Zwickau Upper Carboniferous is overlain by the Rotliegend base conglomerate in the Che...
Die Silifizierung permineralisierter und petrifizierter fossiler Pflanzen (Psaronius, Agathoxylon) aus dem frühen Perm Mitteleuropas wurde mittels Rückstreuelektronenbeugung am Rasterelektronenmikroskop (EBSD) hinsicht-lich der Bildung von Chalzedon und Quarz untersucht. Die Proben stammen aus unterschiedlichen vulkanischen und sedimentären Ablager...
Silicified gymnospermous woods are presented from Canitz-Nord open kaolin pit near Meißen. The investigation area is situated in the middle Elbe Zone, a region characterised by several intrusive and extrusive Carboniferous magmatites in Saxony (E-Germany). The up to several metres long trunk fragments were transported and buried by repeated plastic...
Petrified woods from the Kyffhäuser (Siebigerode Fm., Saale Basin) are among Germany’s most voluminous occurrences of petrified trees. We reconstruct the provenance and fossilisation of the silicified logs and accompanying fossil plants based on sediment architectures documented in 15 quarries, plant-anatomical analyses of 112 specimens from eight...
Die Kieselhölzer des Kyffhäusers (Siebigerode-Fm., Saale-Becken) repräsentieren eines der umfangreichsten Vorkommen versteinerter Bäume in Deutschland. Wir rekonstruieren die Herkunft und Fossilwerdung der versteinerten Bäume sowie weiterer Florenreste anhand der Dokumentation ihrer einbettenden Sedimentarchitekturen in 15 Steinbrüchen, der anatomi...
Siliceous petrifactions belong to the most spectacular and widely distributed terrestrial plant macrofossils. Recorded from different environments and times during the geological history, they permit deep insights into the composition and former function of tissues, organs, organisms, and even whole habitats. Regardless of sharing the main constitu...
Update information of a current research project.
The Manebach Formation (Lower Rotliegend, Thuringian Forest)
represents one of the most important fossil archives of early Permian
continental ecosystems in Europe. During an excavation in the summer of 2016, a 9.5-m thick profile at the Kammerberg site (Manebach village) has been documented with cm-resolution by the Naturhistorisches Museum Schleu...
Seit Jahrhunderten werden in den oberkarbonischen Sandsteinen des Kyffhäusers meterlange, verkieselte Stämme gefunden, die den ältesten versteinerten Wald Deutschlands repräsentieren. Obwohl ihre wissenschaftliche Erforschung bis in die Frühzeit der Paläobotanik zurückverfolgt werden kann, blieben die Herkunft, die Versteinerungsumstände und das ex...
Fluvial red beds containing anatomically preserved large woody debris shed new light on seasonally dry biomes of the Pennsylvanian–Permian transition and elucidate the concurrence of river depositional systems and vegetation. As a result, the occurrence, distribution and preservation of petrified large woody debris accumulations are considered cruc...
For 300 years, fossil plants from fluvial deposits of the Manebach Formation (Asselian, central Germany) have kept both collectors and scientists in their spell, and their investigation is considered to represent the onset of palaeobotany. Compressions and casts of various plant organs, many of them preserved in striking detail, provided insights i...
The poster illustrates preliminary results of a study currently in press that deals with the depositional environment and silicification process of the Northern Tocantins Petrified Forest (Motuca Fm., lower Permian of north-central Brazil). The research is based upon a combination of lithofacies analysis, description of tissue preservation, microst...
The poster illustrates preliminary results of a study currently in press that deals with the depositional environment and silicification process of the Northern Tocantins Petrified Forest (Motuca Fm., lower Permian of north-central Brazil). The research is based upon a combination of lithofacies analysis, description of tissue preservation, microst...
Since the early days of Carboniferous research, studies on continental sediments and fossils from the ‘coal era’ focused on deposits resulting from peat-forming wetlands. This bias reflects the diminished preservation potential of palaeoecosystems from extra-basinal areas resulting in a scarcity of corresponding geological evidence. In the past 20...
Mit einer Mächtigkeit von maximal 670 m und einem Ausstrichgebiet von ca. 12 km2 bildet der Kyffhäuser den bedeutendsten Aufschluss stephanischer Sedimente in der Saale-Senke. In den Gesteinen häufig auftretende, bis 12 m lange und 1 m breite verkieselte Stämme (Abb. 1A, B) ziehen seit 250 Jahren die Aufmerksamkeit von Sammlern und Paläobotanikern...
The occurrence and formation of silicified wood from five late Paleozoic basins in Central Europe was investigated. Fossil wood from diverse geological settings was studied using field observations, taphonomic determinations as well as mineralogical analyses (polarizing microscopy, cathodoluminescence (CL) microscopy and spectroscopy). The results...
In contrast to in-situ preserved plant associations such as petrified forests, alluvial or fluvial plant assemblages often receive less scientific attention. The reasons are obvious: a lack of site-specific information and a loss of anatomical integrity connected to enhanced fragmentation during transport. However, such plant assemblages may offer...
The Kyffhäuser Mountains of NE Thuringia (Central Germany) exhibit an up to 600 meters thick succession of wet red beds from the Siebigerode Formation of the Saale Basin. Due to centuries of quarry mining, the lithofacies architecture provides unique insights into the evolution of the depositional environment and its hinterlands in response to clim...
At Carrizo Arroyo, southwest of Albuquerque, New Mexico, an approximately 100-m-thick section of the latest Pennsylvanian (latest Gzhelian) to Early Permian (early Asselian) Red Tanks Member of the Bursum Formation is exposed. This sedimentary succession is interpreted as a coastal plain on a very shallow shelf affected by repeated transgressions a...
Questions
Question (1)
The question particularly considers the Variscan basement in Germany, the Czech Republic and Poland. A Late Pennsylvanian-early Permian quartz-hematite mineralisation is reported from the Mid-German Crystalline Zone (Kyffhäuser, Germany), but where else?