Publications/ Collection of the Ruhr Museum Foundation

The article summarises important results of the publication by Sachs et al. (2020) on plesiosaur remains from the Duisburg Formation (Turonian, Cretaceous). The skeletal remains were acquired in 1935 by the then Ruhrland Museum Essen (now Ruhr Museum). The skeletal remains from Unna/Germany are the first evidence of a polycotylid from the Turonian of Europe. The article includes a live reconstruction of the three to four metre tall plesiosaur. In the article, the naturalist Abraham Laurent from Dortmund-Hörde, the discoverer of the skeletal remains, is honoured for his services to the geosciences. His numerous finds found their way into the collections of the Naturmuseums Dortmund, the Deutsches Bergbaumuseum Bochum and the Ruhr Museum.

The Ruhr Museum’s new Central Storage Facility and Schaudepot (ZSD) opened in 2021 on the Zollverein UNESCO World Heritage Site. It embodies the spectacular repurposing of the listed, four-storey functional building of the former salt factory on a coking plant site. Significant parts of the Ruhr Museum’s collections on natural science, archaeology and history are accessible for the first time to the public here, housed in keeping with the latest conservation and climate-control standards. It offers a versatile storage system on approx. 1,500 square metres of floor space for more than 100,000 individual objects. Approximately 25,000 objects are visible on display. The Ruhr Museum’s natural science collections, especially its geoscience collections, are among the best of their kind in Germany. The ZSD houses more than 80,000 small and large-format objects from the natural science collections. The geoscience collection of the former Fuhlrott Museum in Wuppertal alone accounts for about 60,000 of these objects. With the incorporation of these collections, the Ruhr Museum now covers two regional collection focal points: the Ruhr region and the Bergisches Land. In terms of number and volume, the natural science collections represent the Ruhr Museum’s largest collection holdings housed in the ZSD. The geological time scale of its objects ranges from about one billion years to the present (Anthropocene). In its entirety, the ZSD embodies the fundamental aims of a museum to collect, preserve, and research. As already impressively demonstrated by an ARTE/WDR production with a wide international reach, the Ruhr Museum’s ZSD also offers an extraordinary stage for people working in the arts, culture and media. This makes the ZSD as a whole a predestined place for thought-provoking multi- and/or interdisciplinary exhibitions, art and cultural projects and, last but not least, new research approaches. Das neue Zentral- und Schaudepot (ZSD) des Ruhr Museums wurde 2021 auf dem UNESCO-Welterbe Zollverein eröffnet. Es verkörpert die spektakuläre Nachnutzung des denkmalgeschützten, viergeschossigen Zweckbaus der ehemaligen Salzfabrik auf dem Kokereigelände. Hier sind für die Öffentlichkeit erstmals zugänglich bedeutende Teile der Sammlungen des Ruhr Museums zur Naturwissenschaft, Archäologie und Geschichte unter Einhaltung neuester konservatorischer und klimatechnischer Standards untergebracht. Für die mehr als 100.000 deponierten Einzelobjekte steht auf ca. 1.500 Quadratmeter Grundfläche ein vielseitiges Lagersystem zur Verfügung. Ca. 25.000 Objekte davon sind an Schauseiten sichtbar. Die Naturwissenschaftlichen Sammlungen des Ruhr Museums, insbesondere ihre geowissenschaftlichen Sammlungen, zählen in Deutschland zu den besten ihrer Art. Im ZSD sind mehr als 80.000 klein- und großformatige Objekte der Naturwissenschaftlichen Sammlungen untergebracht. Alleine ca. 60.000 Einzelobjekte entfallen dabei auf die geowissenschaftliche Sammlung des ehemaligen Fuhlrott-Museums aus Wuppertal. Mit ihrer Inkorporation deckt das Ruhr Museum nunmehr zwei regionale Sammlungsschwerpunkte ab: das Ruhrgebiet und das Bergische Land. Die Naturwissenschaftlichen Sammlungen repräsentieren in Anzahl und Volumen den größten im ZSD untergebrachten Sammlungsbestand des Ruhr Museums. Das erdgeschichtliche Altersspektrum seiner Objekte reicht dabei von ca. einer Milliarde Jahre bis in die Gegenwart (Anthropozän). In seiner Gesamtheit materialisiert das ZSD die Grundfunktionen eines Museums: Sammeln, Bewahren, Erforschen. Wie anhand einer ARTE/WDR-Produktion mit international großer Reichweite bereits eindrücklich unter Beweis gestellt bietet das ZSD des Ruhr Museums darüber hinaus eine außergewöhnliche Bühne für Kunst-, Kultur- und Medienschaffende. Damit ist das ZSD insgesamt ein prädestinierter Ort für Denkanstöße für multi- und/oder interdisziplinäre Ausstellungen, Kunst- und Kulturprojekte und nicht zuletzt auch für neue Forschungsansätze.

The Ruhr Museum in Essen has one of the most important natural science collections in Germany. Its extensive holdings were previously spread among several depots. Since 2021, more than 80,000 of these natural science objects alone have been housed in the Ruhr Museum’s new Central Storage Facility and Schaudepot (ZSD). Among these, about 60,000 individual objects belong to the collection of the former Fuhlrott Museum. In terms of collection strategy, in addition to the Ruhr region the Bergisches Land is thus prominently represented in the ZSD with fossils, rocks and minerals. The ZSD is one of the seventeen projects funded nationwide by the Federal Ministry, “which are role models that radiate beyond regional and even national borders”. In addition to the basic functions of a museum, the ZSD offers creative opportunities for people working in the arts, culture and media. In keeping with the latest conservation and air-conditioning standards, the ZSD, which is open to the public, was designed as a spectacular repurposing of the listed, four-storey functional building of a former salt factory on the Zollverein UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its multifaceted storage system creates coherent “images” from the condensed presentation of numerous similar objects. And the substantive concept of the project as an Schaudepot for both the collections to be stored and displayed was realised on the basis of conservational, security-related and static considerations.

The article reports on the find of a partially articulated partial skeleton of a sea cow (Sirenia) and its accompanying fauna (mainly invertebrates) from the base of the Grafenberg Formation (Upper Oligocene) of Ratingen (NRW/ Germany). Paleogeographically, the depositional area is attributed to the eastern margin of the Lower Rhine Bight (Niederrheinische Bucht), which belonged to the southern part of the former North Sea. The skeletal remains of the sea cow consist mainly of ribs and vertebrae; skull and bones of the extremities are missing. An exact taxonomic determination is not possible with the present skeletal elements. The partially intensive growth of the bones with balanids is taphonomically remarkable.

The article presents a detailed guide to the processing of historical wet collections, exemplified by a fish collection. Exhibition as well as conservation aspects are discussed. Different methods are presented and illustrated for each work step. Furthermore it is focussed on the processing of dried out specimens, as well as an up-to-date and very effcient sealing method for jars using a light vacuum. (This article is published in german)

With this contribution to "Palaeozoic Ostracod Classification" the current studies on the Superfamily Kirkbyacea ULRICH & BASSLER, 1906 are continued with the description of Velbertilites n. g. (type species V. auritus n. sp.; Palaeocopina, Kirkbyacea). The new genus was found in hemipelagic Early Carboniferous silicified limestones of the Velbert anticline ("silicified transitional beds", Late Visean; northern Rheinisches Schiefergebirge) and it is considered to be a late Palaeozoic representative of the amphissitid "Polytylites line" (sensu BECKER 1997b, emend. 2001 a).

This contribution to "Palaeozoic Ostracod Classification" is an addendum to F. J. Adamczak's (edited post mortem by G. B. [POC, Nos. 37-38]) comprehensive study on Mid-Palaeozoic primitiopsids. The new Late Carboniferous genus Mackowiakina n. g. (type species: M. latamargina n. sp., from the Upper Visean of the Rheinisches Schiefergebirge) is described; its family relationship and palaeoecological peculiarities are discussed. Following earlier assessments on the applicability of subgenera in biostratigraphy, the new subgenus Kielciella (Coenokielciella) Becker n. subg. (type species: K. arduennensis Adamczak and Coen, 1992, from the uppermost Givetian, Fromelennes Formation of Belgium) is proposed. Showing three perimarginal tubercles, the new late Givetian taxon differs from typical forms (Emsian - early Givetian), which exhibit perimarginal ridges in heteromorphs.

This contribution to "Palaeozoic Ostracod Classification" deals with the history of Editia Brayer, 1952, originally described as a kirkbyid ostracod but subsequently found to show (with its allies) non-kirkbyacean but cytheracean characters - in this respect, an addendum to the chronicle of the Superfamily Kirkbyacea Ulrich & Bassler, 1906. Consequently, the Family Editiidae Knüpfer, 1967b (as understood by Gramm & Egorov 1987) is considered to have given rise to the advanced Mesozoic - Cenozoic Cytheracea. The systematics as well as the stratigraphical, ecological and zoogeographical significance of this neglected family are discussed. In the genus Editia Brayer, 1952, two new species are described, namely E. ansaformis n. sp. and E. sola n. sp., and in the genus Adedtia Gramm & Egorov, 1987, the subspecies A. jugata cornujugata n. subsp.

Choristodera is a clade of extinct aquatic reptiles whose fossils have been found in freshwater and marginal marine deposits from Europe, Asia and North America. The European record is the most extensive, spanning at least the Middle Jurassic to early Miocene, and incorporates the stratigraphically oldest and youngest members of the group. Despite this, there is an unexplained~70 myr gap in European chori-stoderan fossil occurrences. Here we fill this hiatus with the discovery of an isolated choristoderan dorsal vertebra from the lower Cenomanian 'Rotkalk' red limestone facies of the Essen Greensand Formation in Mülheim/Ruhr, North Rhine-Westphalia, western Germany. This specimen represents the first identifiable European choristoderan from the KimmeridgianeCampanian interval, and displays a diagnostic state combination including an amphiplatyan centrum with synapophyses on the transverse processes that are level with the neurocentral suture. The palaeobiogeographical distribution of choristoderans thus likely transected the entire Laurasian landmass throughout the Cretaceous, with perceived stratigraphical in-terstices being a result of incomplete sampling.

In this second part about the Santonian locality Weiner Esch in the northwestern part of the Münsterland Cretaceous Basin, parts of the rich fauna (mainly shark-teeth) are described.

An outcrop on a small hill - the Weiner Esch - in the northwestern part of the Münsterland Cretaceous Basin is famous for its rich fauna, mainly shark-teeth. The geological background of this outcrop within the santonian Burgsteinfurt Formation is described.

Short note on Hippopotamus-teeth from the Lower Rhine Embayment

Short note on Cenomanian Echinoids from a temporary outcrop in Mülheim-Broich (Ruhr Basin)

90 years of Geological Collections of the Ruhrlandmuseum Essen (Now Ruhr Museum)

Description of two temporary outcrops from middle to upper Santonian age

On the find of pleistocene oak-trunks in a temporary outcrop in Essen-Heisingen (Ruhr Basin)

The special exhibition "Mensch und Tier im Revier" on display at the Ruhr Museum Essen from July 8, 2019 to August 11, 2020 and the catalog accompanying the exhibition deal with the unequal relationship between humans and animals in the past and present in over 100 selected unique objects. This catalog article deals with one of the most important sites for Carboniferous insects, a abandoned clay pit in Hagen-Vorhalle, Germany. The focus is on a male specimen of the species Homoioptera vorhallensis which is part of the collection of the Ruhr Museum Foundation. It has a minimum body length of 31 cm. This specimen belongs to the former collection of the Fuhlrott Museum in Wuppertal. It represents one of six specimens of this species that have become known so far. Both female and male specimens of H. vorhallensis are reported. Based on the fauna discovered in the clay pit Hagen-Vorhalle, the catalog article also describes a special phenomenon of palaeontology (and biology): eponymy, i.e. the naming of species according to sites and persons. By naming newly discovered species from this clay pit, for example, finders, collectors, preparators and experts were honored. In this way, connected on eternities with certain fossils of the fossil Lagerstätte Hagen-Vorhalle, a one-sided and therefore very special "man-animal-relationship" results.