High‐Resolution Temperature Variability During Eocene Greenhouse in Messel

High‐resolution continental temperature records from geological archives are crucial in order to evaluate temperature dynamics under fundamentally different climate conditions than today. Particularly the warm early to middle Eocene (∼56–40 million years ago) has become the focus of paleoclimate studies with the intention of quantifying temperatures under high atmospheric carbon dioxide (pCO2) levels. Here we present a ∼430 thousand‐year high‐resolution continental temperature record, reconstructed from terrestrial biomarkers preserved in the maar sediments of the UNESCO World Heritage Site “Messel Fossil Pit,” Germany during the earliest middle Eocene of Central Europe (∼47.7–47.2 million years ago).

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Data and Resources

Additional Info

Field Value
Geographic coverage
Geographic description Messel UNESCO world heritage site
Bounding coordinates
North: 49.915
West: 8.7513
East: 8.7513
South: 49.915
Other info
Last Updated January 29, 2026, 11:18 (UTC)
Created January 29, 2026, 11:15 (UTC)

Responsible parties

Creator and point of contact
Name Iuliana Popa-Vasiliev
Organization affiliations
Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (BiK-F)

Creator
Name Clemens Schmitt
Organization affiliations
Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (BiK-F)

Creator

Creator
Name Andreas Mulch
Organization affiliations
Senckenberg

Associated publications

Publication
Link https://doi.org/10.1029/2024PA005047
Publication
Link https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15320369

Research data management planning

Types of data that will be / are / were created during the project Text (notes, surveys, etc.)
Estimated volume of created data Cannot estimate
Data will be stored at (long-term archived) Dropbox; lab computers; instrument computers; external memory devices

Link to this dataset:

https://dataportal.senckenberg.de/dataset/92f9b9f6-0a67-4794-8810-7dd86add06ae