Veres János: A bükkábrányi 8 millió éves mocsárerdő (Múzeumi Mozaik 7. Miskolc, 2007)

water sealed environments both of which creates unusual conservation. Known examples are the well preserved remains of human corpses in swamps (Tollund, Lindow) where the lack of air unabled decomposing, rotting or other chemical processes like fossilization. These rubberlike corpses lack the rigidity of the bones as the swamps leaches all the calcium but preserving the body itself in a real lifelike statue. This well known process in the archeology is what might have happened in Bükkábrány. A 6-metre deep layer of wet sand or silt suddenly covered the lower part of the forest sealing in airtight every living organism that once had belonged to this biosphere. In the one hand this wet, airless environment preserved the remains but on the other hand prevented fossil diagenesis from happening. As a result we have a frozen moment of that exact paleoenvironment in front of our eves. The forest above this preserving layer decayed slowly the evidence of which can be found both in the top layers or in the bottom where driftwood and other stuff have sunk. 8 million years passed in the meantime, the geological processes of which along with the landscape forming ages have covered this ancient coastline with 60 metres of debris. The formation of what is the Hungarian landscape today and the formation of the mining industry began. And just how significant this finding and phenomenon is? By looking at the upper Miocene map of the Carpathia Basin it is clear that the swamp forest covered most of northeastern Hungary and shows crytical concurrence with the lignite field of today. It is quite possible that more than one of these forest parts got covered in a half-hungary sized region. Having said that however we must quickly add that same taphonomical processes are unlikely. Most of the burried upper Miocene forest has fossilized or has long turned into lignite, thus adding to the resources of the region. On the other hand it is totally conceivable that lots of similar findings are still out