The oldest seahorse fossils
found in the Middle Miocene beds in Slovenia
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Fossil seahorses of
the Coprolitic Horizon.
See also:
http://www.gea-on.net/clanek.asp?ID=814&Poglavje=6
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Of all the mysterious,
secretive creatures in the ocean, the seahorse is
probably the most legendary. It looks like a creature
that could only exist in someone's imagination.
Little is known about their origin. When, how and where did
they originated? For several decades fossil seahorses have
been known only from the 5 million years old, Lower Pliocene
(and perhaps also Upper Miocene)* Merecchia River Formation, Poggio Berni, Rimini Province in Italy.
However, in the year 2005 much older fossils of these amazing
and exotic animals have been found in the Tunjice hills
(Slovenia). They are of the Middle Miocene age (Lower
Sarmatian, 13 million years), therefore representing the oldest known seahorse fossils. |
Slovenian
paleoentomological site
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Fossil insects of
the Coprolitic Horizon.
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In the year 1997 a new location with
fossil insects has been found in the surounding of the Tunjice village (Central
Slovenia, Europe). The fossil insects are preserved in a
laminated marl of the Coprolitic Horizon, which is of the Lower-Sarmatian age.
Fossil insects and
coprolites are accompanied with the fossils of flowers and other
plants, fish and molluscs and even scyphozoan medusae
or "jellyfish". The fossil
insect association in this outcrop is thus far constitued by orders
Coleoptera, Orthoptera, Diptera and Hymenoptera.
Probably even more important than fossil insect fauna are fossils of
the seahorses, that appeared to be the oldest seahorse fossils
ever found.
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T-TECTO homepage
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T-TECTO homepage |
The T-TECTO computer
program (written by Jure Žalohar) is being developed at Faculty of
Natural Sciences and Ingineering. The T-TECTO enables fast and simple structural analysis of
heterogeneous and homogeneous fault-slip data using the Gauss method
(Žalohar and Vrabec, 2007). The program is provided free of charge. The
future information on bug-fixes and upgrades will be published on the
T-TECTO homepage. Further information and documentation on T-TECTO may
be obtained from
developers and distributors. |
This page was last edited on:
10.09.2008
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