Museum of Natural History

In Sonnenberg, just a ten-minute walk from the Stadtwirtschaft, the “Window into Earth’s History”—the scientific excavation of the Petrified Forest—offers a glimpse into a world that was frozen in time by a volcanic eruption 291 million years ago. Trees that seem strange to us today formed the habitat of numerous animals—giant centipedes, scorpions, primeval dinosaurs…

New fossils unearthed during the excavation are first taken to the storage and preparation rooms of the Museum of Natural History in the Stadtwirtschaft. Here, the finds—still damp from the soil—can dry under controlled conditions and are subsequently prepared for examination and exhibition. Using a pneumatic chisel, the preparator removes the fossils from the volcanic rock. To reveal the finest details of the fossilized wood, machines are available for making cross-sections and microscopic thin sections.

The treasure buried beneath Chemnitz is only becoming visible and scientifically usable through preparations in the “Rock Lab”.