During the late Jurassic the world was certainly a different place, and what is now Solnhofen is now understood to have been part of an archipelago on the edge of the Tethys Sea, a body of water that existed between a landmass of northern hemisphere continents (Laurasia) and southern hemisphere continents (Gondwana) during the late Jurassic (but through time continued to shrink until it ceased to exist). Along this archipelago were lagoons that were fairly isolated from the sea by coral reefs, allowing the lagoons to develop such a high salinity that little could live in the concentrated saline waters. There is some debate about where the division occurred between habitable water and the anoxic level (some arguing a division in the water column, others that the anoxic level was below the first level of sediment), but regardless of level it is apparent that once organisms settled to the bottom they received little disturbance from scavengers or abiotic factors. This is consistent with t