Wietrznia reserve · environment workshop
The sea written in stone
The sea cannot be seen. The evidence can.
The quarry has rocks left, not water. A fossil tells you where something lived. The sediment and the state of the remains tell you where it was recorded, and that need not be the same place. Choose the evidence and see what follows from it and what does not.
Inanimate nature reserve. Observation from the paths only. Do not chip out or collect rocks or fossils.
Choosing evidence requires JavaScript. Without it, below you will find the explanation, the model rules, a table of example sets and the sources.
What can we reconstruct from this?
No evidence. The whole cross-section stays hatched: we do not know where the organism lived or where it was recorded. Model scenarios: 10 of 10.
- 1 PlatformLife: unknownRecord: unknown
- 2 Reef forelandLife: unknownRecord: unknown
- 3 SlopeLife: unknownRecord: unknown
- 4 Deeper basinLife: unknownRecord: unknown
- blue column: life was possible here
- dark stretch of seabed: record was possible here
- hatching: unknown
- amber dashed frame: evidence contradictory, no consistent pair
- arrow: transfer
Nothing to reconstruct yet
Start with one piece of evidence or choose a set from the description. Until something is chosen, the cross-section stays hatched: the sea is unknown, not shallow or deep.
Possible readings in the model
What each piece of evidence gives
- Organism: not chosen. This evidence narrows nothing; the life zone stays open.
- Sediment: not chosen. This evidence narrows nothing; the record zone stays open.
- State of remains: not chosen. The distance between life and record stays open (0–3 zones).
Caution
A fossil on its own, sediment without remains, or broken rubble without context cannot be used to reconstruct the Devonian sea.
What we still do not know
Choose a piece of evidence to see which questions remain open.
Basis: descriptions from V2 that cite sources [1] [2] [3]. Assigning each rule to a specific source has not been checked here; see what needs checking.
Life is one thing, the record is another
A biocoenosis is the animals that lived in one place. A taphocoenosis is their record in the rock, often in a different place. Waves, currents and storms carried skeletons down the slope of the platform. That is why a fossil on its own is only the start of the search. The environment is reconstructed from a set of three pieces of evidence: the organism, the surrounding sediment and the state of the remains.
The workshop calculates only one thing: which pairs (life zone, record zone) agree with all the chosen evidence in the four-zone model. It shows the number of such pairs, not a percentage of confidence. It gives no depth in metres, because these pieces of evidence do not provide one.
A profile of under 100 metres
Wietrznia lies in the south-eastern part of Kielce. The exposed rocks are mainly Devonian, and the profile is under 100 m thick. That is the thickness of the rock record, not the former depth of the water.
The border of two worlds
The area lay between the shallow carbonate platform of the Kielce region and the deeper Łysogóry basin. Coarse-grained limestones sit next to fine sediments here, and research points to the great importance of storms.
Crinoids are animals
Crinoids are echinoderms: they have a calyx, arms and often a stem made of many calcareous parts. After death the small elements (trochites) easily separated and were spread by currents.
The descriptions in this part come from V2 and are based on sources [1]–[3]. They were not checked again in this implementation.
| Evidence | What it narrows | Assumption |
|---|---|---|
| Coral colony | life: zone 1 | Rugosa and Tabulata corals required clean, shallow water |
| Individual crinoid ossicles | life: no narrowing | crinoids occupied different zones of the shelf, so an ossicle alone says nothing about depth |
| Complete crinoid | life: zones 2–3 | a calyx with arms would fall apart in turbulent water. Extending the V2 rule (zone 2) to zone 3 is an assumption by the model author, to be checked |
| Thick-bedded granular limestone | record: zone 2 | water stirred by waves and near-reef currents, coarse skeletal rubble |
| Micrite | record: zones 1–2 | fine carbonate mud in a calmer sector of the foreland or lagoon |
| Dark marl | record: zone 4 | deeper basin, below ordinary wave base |
| Broken colonies, rubble | shift by 1 zone | waves break colonies off and slide them onto the foreland |
| Scattered elements | shift by 0–1 zones | the skeleton fell apart after death, elements dragged apart by currents |
| Storm flow | shift by 1–3 zones | a violent flow carries fragments from the shallows into the basin |
| Life position | shift 0 (life = record) | organism preserved where it grew |
The shift is the number of the record zone minus the number of the life zone. Material does not travel up the slope. The model rejects two combinations outright as logically mutually exclusive: a complete crinoid with scattered elements, and individual loose ossicles in life position.
| Set | Evidence | Result |
|---|---|---|
| A | coral, thick-bedded limestone, broken colonies | life: platform (1), record: reef foreland (2). One combination |
| B | crinoid ossicles, thick-bedded limestone, scattered elements | record: reef foreland (2), life: platform (1) or reef foreland (2). Two readings, no resolution |
| C | coral, marl, storm flow | life: platform (1), record: deeper basin (4). One combination, long-distance transport |
| Riddle | a single crinoid ossicle | everything open: 10 of 10 combinations. Two general readings: shallows or deeper shelf |
What was removed from V2 and why
- Notebook in localStorage (key atlas-v2-80). Removed: it was not needed to understand the topic. V3 saves nothing in the browser. Notes saved earlier in V2 may still be there. This page neither reads nor deletes them.
- The “Custom feature set” mode. Replaced by direct choice of three pieces of evidence (3 + 3 + 4 values, each of which can be left out), and the sets from the description became shortcuts.
- Single markers of life and record. Replaced by ranges of zones: a single marker pretended to settle a question where the evidence does not.
- Photograph of the exposure wall loaded from Wikimedia. It is not embedded, so that the page works offline. The link to the file page remains (see sources).
- The “New 30 attempts” link. Removed from the navigation.
- Kept from V2: four zones, detection of inconsistencies (a coral in life position in marl), the trap of a single crinoid ossicle with two competing readings, sources [1]–[3], the warning about protection of the reserve.
Sources and limits
- Z. Złonkiewicz, PIG-PIB: Zjawiska geologiczne w rezerwacie przyrody nieożywionej Wietrznia [Geological phenomena in the Wietrznia inanimate nature reserve]. Description of the profile, of Rugosa and Tabulata corals, of crinoids and of marly horizons. PIG-PIB Kielce. Link taken over from V2, not opened in this implementation.
- A. Vierek, Geological Quarterly: Storm-dominated deposition on a carbonate platform margin (Upper Devonian, Holy Cross Mts., Poland). Storm deposits and the transport of material from the Kielce platform towards the Łysogóry basin. Geological Quarterly. Link taken over from V2, not opened in this implementation.
- PIG-PIB Geological Museum: Bentos, morskie środowiska dewonu [Benthos, marine environments of the Devonian]. Morphology and mode of life of echinoderms (crinoids) and of sessile benthos. PIG Museum online lessons. Link taken over from V2, not opened in this implementation.
- General photograph of the exposure (not embedded). Wikimedia Commons: Wietrznia_05_ssj_20050330.jpg. According to V2: 30 March 2005, author Paweł Cieśla (Staszek Szybki Jest), licence CC BY-SA 4.0. Authorship and licence to be checked at the source. The photograph shows a general view of the wall, not details of fossils.
What needs checking
- Whether the four zones and the rules in the table correspond to the descriptions in [1]–[3]. This is a simplification by the model author, not a quotation from a publication.
- Assumptions added or extended in V3: “complete crinoid: zones 2–3” and “micrite: zones 1–2”.
- Whether the external links and the target files of the catalogue and of versions V1/V2 work (checked by the integrator after deployment).
- The page is not meant for identifying species or fossils in the field and does not encourage collecting rocks.
Limits of the model. The cross-section is an illustration of the platform–basin relationship, not a map or a bathymetric measurement. The thickness of the layers (about 100 m) means the thickness of the sediment, not the depth of the sea at the time. The number of “model scenarios” is the number of admissible combinations in this simplification, not a probability.