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Fossils, 200 million BC
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Unusually, this collection of Objects of the Month is actually older than the company: The three objects are fossils found and collected by employees from the Sigma-Aldrich branch located in Steinheim am Albuch where they have been previously exhibited in a conference room.
The Steinheim site became part of our company in 2015 following the acquisition of Sigma Aldrich by Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. The plant is characterized by a particular diversity of specialist knowledge. Around 300,000 chemical products can now be offered worldwide for customers in science and technology.
The objects in our collection are a strikingly large ammonite of the genus Arietites bucklandi from the Lower Jurassic (Sinemurium) with a diameter of approx. 30 cm, found 20 kilometers away in Bettringen, a district of Schwäbisch Gmünd. The stone on the left is shatter cone from the Steinheim crater, which was formed by a meteorite impact around 15 million years ago. The rock on the right of the picture is Steinheimer Schneckensand (snail sand), a sand mixed with fossil snail shells, which is found in many places in the crater.
The exhibits are also quite appropriate for the company's history. Johann Anton Merck was an enthusiastic mineral collector – as evidenced from 1780 – and Johann Heinrich Merck wrote an article on the Origin of Fossils in Germany in the “Teutscher Merkur” in 1784.
Since mid-2024, a large number of valuable archival documents – and in this case fossils – have been coming to Corporate History, where they are exhibited and archived.