Rich fossil lagerstatten are concentration deposits like tempestites, but preservation is usually very bad. Marine and brackish sediments of low-energy environments can contain well-preserved specimens of even complex organisms.
Conservation deposits developped when entire biocenosis' were covered with fine-grained sediments during storm events. They are rare, only locally developped, but contain excellently preserved fossils.
While endo- and epibenthic organisms are abundant in some beds, remains of nektonic organisms are rare and usually found only in fragments. The more complex an animal and the larger it's skeleton parts, the lower the chance to find well-preserved parts or even an entire skeleton. This is especially true for echinoderms. Although their fragments can build up entire beds in the Trochitenkalke of the Upper Muschelkalk - apart from crinoids - entirely preserved specimens are absolutely rare. Crustaceans are not this rare, as Upper Muschelkalk bedding planes are often covered with their burrows, but are hard to identify. Isolated fish fragments are abundantly found, but complete specimens are extremely rare and often enclosed by hard nodules.
The not so rare vertebrate remains like teeth and bones commonly become visible only in cross sections of rocks, they seldomly occur on top of bedding plains. But it's mainly fragments, just the more resistant teeth and vertebras are often completely preserved.
Well-preserved plant fragments are abundant in the Lettenkeuper Hauptsandstein, the Schilf-, Stuben- and Rhätsandstein, locally also in mudstones of the Lower Keuper. Schilf- and Stubensandstein are famous for the occurence of large permineralized or charred conifer logs.
It's most likely to find fossils when just closely examining a large rock volume. Digging or excessive hammering don't bring any results as fossils are statistically distributed within the rocks, there are no fossil accumulations except for some concentration and preservation deposits. Successful collecting is therefore limited to quarries and large natural outcrops. Working near steep cliffs brings no results and must be omitted due to safety reasons.
Due to common short-distance facies changes, no bed can be regarded as fossil-rich or empty in general - the same bed may contain totally different (or no) fossils compared to another near outcrop, concerning preservation, fauna or flora assemblages and abundance of fossils.
For fossil hunting, you'll need chisels (with flat and pointed ends) and a larger hammer (up to 10 kgs). A portable rock saw can also be useful. Fossil bones, teeth and larger plant fragments are often destabilized due to weathering or breakups and need a careful treatment with fast-adhering glue before they can be extracted from their matrix rock. Putting a newspaper page over the fossil while hammering prevents it from being damaged by rock fragments that fly around and helps prevent the loss of chipped-off fossil parts. If possible, retrieve the fossil on a large piece of matrix so you can carefully format it at home. This is especially important for fossils in clays or marls. Wet clays tend to shrink when drying and may completely disintegrate. You can prevent this by storing them wrapped in wet newspaper in a tightly closed plastic bag until you have time to prepare and stabilize them.
