Section of the Balabansai Formation in the Upper Jura. The different colors indicate varying depositional conditions and soil formation.

Jurassic Park in Central Asia - Successful field work in southern Kyrgyzstan

Fieldwork conducted by students and staff of the institute from early to mid-April on the northern edge of the Fergana Basin is intended to provide insights into continental ecosystems and how they changed during the Middle Jurassic.
Section of the Balabansai Formation in the Upper Jura. The different colors indicate varying depositional conditions and soil formation.
Image: Jakob Stubenrauch

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Students working on a section of the gray sediments of the Tashkumyr Formation.

Image: Jakob Stubenrauch

From April 3–17, 2026, staff and students from the General and Historical Geology working group conducted productive fieldwork in southern Kyrgyzstan, on the edge of the Fergana Basin. 
Here, near the mining town of Tashkumyr (Kyrgyz for “coal”), Middle Jurassic continental sediments are exposed.
Continental deposits from this period are rather rare, and consequently so are dinosaur fossil sites (marine deposits are more common, such as the Posidonienschiefer near Holzmaden in southern Germany or the Jurassic Coast in southern England). At the same time, very few dinosaur fossil sites are known in Central Asia. The first dinosaur fossils were discovered and described here in the 1960s. After a long hiatus in research (due in part to the collapse of the Soviet Union), sensational new discoveries have been made in recent years (https://www.heise.de/news/Forschungsteam-entdeckt-Ueberreste-von-Raubdinosauriern-in-Kirgisistan -9844532.html)External link. 

Last year, we were already in the field with paleontologists from Gotha, Bamberg, Munich, London, and Liverpool, as well as geologists from the Academy of Sciences in Bishkek.
This year, the existing database was to be expanded. To this end, 12 lithostratigraphic profiles of the three Jurassic formations exposed here were surveyed and samples were collected.
The rock color alone (gray with black coal in the lower part, red in the upper part) provides evidence of climate warming in this region.

As part of two B.Sc. and one M.Sc. theses, the results will now be presented and evaluated to better understand the changes in depositional and thus environmental conditions, as well as tectonic events in Central Asia during the Middle Jurassic.
The goal is to continue this work as part of a DFG project.

The sequence of Middle Jurassic rocks. In the foreground are gray, coal-bearing rocks that transition through brownish-greenish rocks in the center of the image into the red sediments of the Balabansai Formation.

Image: Jakob Stubenrauch