The opening of the Petrified Forest of Lesvos Exhibition under the title A Special Visitor in Messel Pit Fossil Site- Multicolored Giants from the Petrified Forest of Lesvos was held on Oct. 26 in the the Messel Pit Visitor Information Center and Museum, near Frankfurt in Germany.
The exhibition was under the cooperation between the Natural History Museum of the Lesvos Petrified Forest and Messel museum.The Messel Pit Site is a disused quarry near the village of the sane name. Bituminous shale was mined there.
Because of its abundance of fossils, it has significant geological and scientific importance. After almost becoming a landfill, strong local resistance eventually stopped these plans and the Messel Pit was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1995. Significant scientific discoveries are still being made and the site has increasingly become a tourism site as well.
The exhibition was presented as a celebration for the incorporation of Lesvos in The Global Geoparks Network of UNESCO. Messel Mayor Andreas Larem, representative of the Federal Environment Ministry, representatives of the Geopark Bergstrasse-Odenwald, Claudia Eckhardt and many others attended the event. They welcomed the exhibition as well as the unique exhibits presented for the first time to the German public.
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