FROM THE FIELD

When ploughing his field, the farmer is always annoyed when the plough unearths one of these roundish-oval stones up to one meter in size. These strange structures, which look like giant loaves of bread, are popularly known as “loaf stones” and are often found in the fields and construction pits in the area around Altdorf near Nuremberg. What disturbs the farmer causes palaeontologists and collectors great excitement: This is because the limestone that makes up these concretions has often been deposited directly around the remains of an animal that lay on the seabed here during the Jurassic period. As a result, fantastically preserved fossils can often be found inside these strangely rounded stones. The ammonites and vertebrates found in these limestones have found their way into many museums and collections around the world.