THE BOOK AND ITS CHARACTERS

The layers of the flysch are like the pages of a large book and the thousands of fossils that can be found within them are the heroes of our story. Most of these are microscopic and are called foraminifera. In each layer we can find over 60 different species of microfossils.

Over time, species evolve from others, migrate or become extinct, so fossils appear and disappear throughout the layers of the flysch like characters in a novel. 

Their distribution allows us to divide the flysch into different “chapters” called biozones that we can correlate with other places in the world.

(Table)

When the rock samples are washed, we can distinguish between the individual shells of the microfossils. Take a look and you will see that life forms can be found among these grains of sand. They lived in the sea 60 million years ago.