Messel Formation

The Messel pit (German: Grube Messel) is a disused quarry near the village of Messel (Landkreis Darmstadt-Dieburg, Hesse) about 35 km (22 mi) southeast of Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Bituminous shale was mined there. Because of its abundance of well-preserved fossils dating from the middle of the Eocene, it has significant geological and scientific importance. Over 1000 species of plants and animals have been found at the site. After almost becoming a landfill, strong local resistance eventually stopped these plans and the Messel pit was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site on 9 December 1995. Significant scientific discoveries about the early evolution of mammals and birds are still being made at the Messel pit, and the site has increasingly become a tourist site as well.

The Mainzer Berg is a forested hill between the cities of Darmstadt and Dieburg in the southern part of Hesse, Germany. It is part of the northernmost ridge of the Odenwald range and there is a telecommunication tower of 96 meter height on its top. Just two kilometres northwest of the hill is the UNESCO World Heritage Site Messel pit.

Messel is a municipality in the district of Darmstadt-Dieburg in Hesse near Frankfurt am Main in Germany. The village is first mentioned, as Masilla, in the Lorsch codex. Messel was the property of the lords of Groschlag from ca. 1400 to 1799. After the extinction of the Groschlag male lineage, the village would have passed to the Archbishopric of Mainz but the population refused to accept this transition and paid homage to the daughters of the Groschlag family instead. The minister of the archbishopric, von Albini, consequently occupied the village with a force of 50 hussars. In 1806, the village fell to the Grand Duchy of Hesse. The nearby Messel pit is an important site for Eocene fossils.

Jagdschloss Kranichstein is a palace in Kranichstein, now part of Darmstadt, Hesse, Germany. It was built north of Darmstadt from 1578 as a Jagdschloss, a hunting lodge for George I, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt. It served also as a summer residence. In 1917, it became a museum of hunting. From 1946, it was the first location of the Darmstädter Ferienkurse. The estate is one of few remaining Baroque hunting lodges in Germany, referred to also as Kranichstein Hunting Lodge. It serves as a hunting museum, and as a hotel with restaurant and event location including for weddings.

Roßdorf is a municipality in the district of Darmstadt-Dieburg, in Hesse, Germany. It has a population of 12,619 (as of 2020). It is situated 8 km east of Darmstadt.

Rödermark is a town in the Offenbach district in the Regierungsbezirk of Darmstadt in Hesse, Germany, southeast of Frankfurt am Main and northeast of Darmstadt.

The Darmstadt-Kranichstein Railway Museum (Eisenbahnmuseum Darmstadt-Kranichstein) is a railway museum in the German city of Darmstadt. It is also the largest railway museum in the state of Hesse. The former railway depot (Bahnbetriebswerk or BW) includes a locomotive shed, turntable, coal bunkers and other locomotive facilities. There is also an adjoining repair shop (Ausbesserungswerk), where major repairs can be carried out. The depot is located on the Rhine-Main line from Darmstadt to Aschaffenburg. It was established in 1898 by the United Prussian and Hessian State Railways and opened as a railway museum on 29 May 1976 when the site was leased from the Deutsche Bundesbahn to the board of trustees of the museum railway. A large collection of locomotives may be viewed in the museum, such as the still-operational DRG 23 042, 01 1056, 41 024 and 44 404 steam engines, steam locomotive 4981 "Mainz", (a Prussian G 8) that was transferred from Turkey, the Austrian locomotive ÖBB 97 210, a rack railway steam engine from the Erzberg railway, the DB locomotive number 103 101-2 and the DRG E 16 08 electric engine, several DB Class V 36 diesel locomotives, a Wismar Railbus and a host of other railway vehicles, including several Culemeyer heavy trailers. The large vehicle fleet cannot be visited at present. In the meantime, however, there are exhibits to aid technical understanding, such as the sectioned boiler of Deutsche Reichsbahn steam engine number 50 1397, and the driver's cab of 50 1745; as well as a signalling collection with historical signals and signal box equipment. In addition, the evolution of fare tickets over the years is portrayed, from manually produced examples from the early years to the present-day computer printouts, as well as their related equipment. The museum also has its own ticket-printing press. An H0-model railway layout depicts Darmstadt station on the Main-Neckar line at the time the route was opened. Special train services visit the museum several times a year, running between Darmstadt Ost and Bessunger Forst.Several vehicles, e. g. the 23 042 and the G8 4981 "Mainz" haul specials throughout the whole of Germany. The vehicles are run by the German Museum Railway GmbH (DME) as the operating company. (Deutsche Museums-Eisenbahn) GmbH (DME).

The GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research (German: GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung) is a federally and state co-funded heavy ion (Schwerion) research center in the Wixhausen suburb of Darmstadt, Germany. It was founded in 1969 as the Society for Heavy Ion Research (German: Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung), abbreviated GSI, to conduct research on and with heavy-ion accelerators. It is the only major user research center in the State of Hesse. The laboratory performs basic and applied research in physics and related natural science disciplines. Main fields of study include plasma physics, atomic physics, nuclear structure and reactions research, biophysics and medical research. The lab is a member of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres. Shareholders are the German Federal Government (90%) and the State of Hesse, Thuringia and Rhineland-Palatinate. As a member of the Helmholtz Association, the current name was given to the facility on 7 October 2008 in order to bring it sharper national and international awareness.The GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research has strategic partnerships with the Technische Universität Darmstadt, Goethe University Frankfurt, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies.

The Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) is an international accelerator facility under construction which will use antiprotons and ions to perform research in the fields of: nuclear, hadron and particle physics, atomic and anti-matter physics, high density plasma physics, and applications in condensed matter physics, biology and the bio-medical sciences. It is situated in Darmstadt in Germany. FAIR will be based upon an expansion of the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research, the details of which have been laid out in the FAIR Baseline Technical Report 2006. On October 4, 2010 the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research in Europe limited liability company (German GmbH), abbreviated as FAIR GmbH, was founded which coordinates the construction of the new accelerators and experiments. The construction begun at summer of 2017. Commissioning is planned for 2025. The original budget had been estimated at 1262 million euro (2005 price level), in 2018 the German Federal Court of Auditors stated that the cost of FAIR had increased to at least 1669 million euro (2005 prices), in 2019 a further report by the Federal Court of Auditors quoted results from a review board that an additional 850 million euro (2019 prices) would be needed to finish building the facility.

Kranichstein is a district in the city of Darmstadt. The town started with housing construction in the 1960s and now also has a number of residential high-rises. Often referred to as Darmstadt-Kranichstein.

Darmstadt-Dieburg is a Kreis (district) in the south of Hesse, Germany. Neighboring districts are Offenbach, Aschaffenburg, Miltenberg, Odenwaldkreis, Bergstraße, Groß-Gerau, and the district-free city of Darmstadt, which it surrounds.

Groß-Zimmern is a municipality in the district of Darmstadt-Dieburg, in Hessen, Germany. It is situated 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) east of Darmstadt and right next to Dieburg. In 1846, over 700 town residents emigrated in the Great Migration to New York City. The town paid for the passage of 674 passengers and about 100 more paid their own way. The emigrants sailed on at least five ships – the Atlas (46%), the Sardinia (37%), the Manchester (6%), the Montezuma (7%), and the Pontiac (6%). 425 of the emigrants had no funds or food when they landed in New York city and entered the Bellevue Almshouse which overloaded the capacity of the Almshouse. New York City petitioned the US Congress to pass laws that would prevent the arrival of paupers on overcrowded ships to the United States.