Living conditions at the time of the deposit of the Koessen formation

The landscape and the underwater world of 200 millions years ago was quite similar to what you can see nowadays when snorkelling in Hurghada on the Red Sea or in Thailand and Bali.

Your neighbours on the beach would not be handsome G-string boys or attractive bikini-clad girls, though, but rather less charming saurians.

The location of this small reef 1,880 m above sea level, and 2,000 km north of today’s most northern reef is impressive proof of the impermanence of the Earth’s crust, and the shifting distribution of the continents and oceans.

The tropical beach paradise presents itself in the stumbling verses as written on the plate near the reef patch.