(ae) One doesn't usually look for fish or other marine life on a mountain–unless, of course, one is a palaeontologist. A recently opened special display, entitled "How the fish got to the mountain" from the ETH geological-mineralogical collection (1) shows the work of these scientists (2). The display, the product of a joint initiative from the Nature Museum of the Grisons in Chur (4) and the Palaeontological Museum of the University of Zurich (3) exhibits fossil finds–not only of fish–from the Ducan and "Landwasser" regions south of Davos.

Over a period of twelve years, at an altitude of around 2,700 metres, Heinz Furrer, palaeontologist at the University of Zurich, and his team have been recovering sedimentary rock that contains 230 million year-old fossil remains. The exhibition, which runs until 4th September 2004, answers such questions as how these digs in the mountains are carried out, how these sea creatures came to be in the Alps in the first place and what these findings can tell us about early forms of life and their environment. And it does this in a graphic and entertaining way.

The layers of rock are separated with hammer and chisel and meticulously catalogued (Picture: Heinz Furrer) large

Tropical climate in Davos

Visitors learn that, 230 million years ago, the Ducan and "Landwasser" regions were part of a wide tract of water that lay on the edge of a gigantic ocean. The climate was tropical and the temperature of the water was warm, around 25 degrees. The surrounding reefs, sandbanks and low-laying islands afforded habitats for small saurian creatures, crabs, mussels, snails, algae and fish. There does not, however, seem to have been any life on the seabed.

A saurichthys, a predatory fish, containing the pressed bones of its final prey in its stomach. (Picture: Heinz Lanz) large

When a dead animal sank to the seabed it was not decomposed by snails or worms as usually happens, but simply covered with a fine chalky sludge and embedded. This process could be an explanation for the good state of preservation of many of the fossils found in the region.

The long journey of the fossils

The exhibition illustrates seven stages in the long journey of the marine forms of life; up to the mountain–and down again to Zurich. For example, visitors can observe reconstructed sea creatures, small and bigger actinopterygian fish and marine saurian creatures swim in an simulated aquarium. Another part of the exhibition shows how fossils are recovered high up in the Alps, with a display showing a shovel, hammer, chisel, brushes, shirt and mineral water lying on a rock surface, outlined with chalk. A blow-up photograph showing the team at work provides the backdrop for the display. Yet the real show-pieces are the carefully prepared, well-preserved fossils themselves.

One of the prepared fish, an eoeugnathus that was found in the region of Davos. (Picture: Heinz Lanz) large