PAINTING THE PAST: BRINGING 500 MILLION YEARS OF MADYGEN BACK TO LIFE

In southwestern Kyrgyzstan, a complexly folded landscape provides an exceptional opportunity to study geological and biological evolution throughout the Phanerozoic in a one-day walk. Situated between the Southern Tian Shan and the Fergana Basin, the Madygen region offers an almost continuous stratigraphic record from the Cambrian to the present. While the Paleozoic and Cenozoic sequences are predominantly marine, the Mesozoic strata reflect extended continental environments.

To promote scientific research, education, and geotourism in this developing country, the Madygen area aspires to become a certified UNESCO Global Geopark. Madygen’s great potential for paleobiological research also offers an ideal setting for science communication. A new series of paleoart brings to life the diverse fossil flora and fauna, as well as the manifold habitats across the Phanerozoic.

The local Madygen Formation, a lacustrine Middle to Late Triassic fossil conservation Lagerstätte, impresses with its exceptional quality and quantity of paleontological finds. To date, over 30,000 fossils—including at least 500 insect species, twelve endemic vertebrate species, and numerous ichnofossils—have been recovered from these strata (Voigt et al., 2017).

But Madygen’s geological and paleontological richness extends far beyond the Triassic. The area’s diverse Cambrian fauna includes stem-group cnidarians and mollusks, brachiopods and trilobites, and many newly described taxa (Geyer et al., 2015). Prominently red Cretaceous strata with large ichnofossils transition into Paleogene marine sediments, which represent unique paleogeographic realms containing oysters and other mollusks, chondrichthyan and fish fossils, and various microfossils (e.g., Trubin et al., 2025).