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.