The Guimarota coal mine in central Portugal is the most important fossil locality in the world for Late Jurassic mammals and other small vertebrates. From 1973 to 1982 the mine was worked for purely paleontological purposes, making it one of the most ambitious enterprises in the history of paleontology. Tens of thousands of skulls, jaws, bones, and teeth of terrestrial and aquatic vertebrates and countless invertebrate and plant remains were collected. An international sensation was the discovery of the first complete skeleton of an ancestor of modern mammals.
Twenty specialists from geo- and biosciences summarize in 21 chapter the latest findings of more than 30 years of interdisciplinary research on the Guimarota locality. The book deals with the history of discovery, excavations, geology, stratigraphy, paleobiology and paleoecology of the fossil locality.