The Paper's reporter Wu Yuewei
00:42
Are there dinosaur fossils in your hometown?
Dinosaur fossils include dinosaur footprint fossils, skeletal fossils, and dinosaur egg fossils.
On January 12, Xing Lida, an associate professor at China University of Geosciences (Beijing), told The Paper that by www.thepaper.cn the end of 2020, dinosaur fossils had been found in 26 of the country's 34 provincial-level administrative regions, except for 8 provincial-level administrative regions such as Tianjin, Shanghai, Fujian, Hainan, Qinghai, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.
On the 12th, the surging news learned that dinosaur fossils were found for the first time in Fujian Province, ending the history of "no dinosaurs".
Group photo of the expedition team
The fossil is a dinosaur footprint and is evidence that dinosaurs lived in Fujian. Located in Shanghang County, Longyan City, Fujian Province, these fossils are important discoveries made by the Fujian Provincial Dinosaur Resources Joint Expedition team on the second day of the field expedition, and are the largest, most diverse and best-preserved Late Cretaceous dinosaur footprint group in China, with a footprint area of 1600 square meters, which is of great significance for the study of the late Cretaceous paleoenvironment about 80 million years ago in western Fujian.
At 10 o'clock on the 12th, the Information Office of the Fujian Provincial Government held a press conference in Fuzhou to find dinosaur footprint fossils in Shanghang, Longyan, Fujian.
1600 square meters dinosaur footprint point
"The discovery of the Shanghang dinosaur footprint group is a good start for the discovery of dinosaur fossils in Fujian, and I believe that more and more dinosaur fossils (in Fujian) may be found in the future, not only dinosaur footprints, but also dinosaur bones, and even dinosaur egg fossils." On the morning of the 12th, Peng Guangzhao, member of the National Expert Committee on Paleontological Fossils and former director of the Sichuan Zigong Dinosaur Museum, said.
According to reports, at present, the expedition team has cleared more than 240 dinosaur footprints at the level of argillary siltstone or siltstone mudstone, including plant-eating sauropods, large, medium and small bird feet, carnivorous large three-toed theropods, two-toed dinosaurs, small theropods and at least eight kinds of tracers (dinosaurs).
This is the first time that a large dinosaur has been found in China, and it is also the largest dinosaur footprint found in China.
Expedition members study dinosaur footprints
The dinosaur fossil site covers an area of about 1600 square meters, and the production date is earlier than that of dinosaur fossil sites in Ganzhou, Jiangxi, Heyuan, Guangdong, etc., and the diversity is much higher than that of the Late Cretaceous footprints in Jiayin, Heilongjiang, Huangshan, Anhui, Nanxiong, Nanxiong, Yunnan, Zhaojue, Sichuan, and Dongyang, Zhejiang.
The characteristics of these footprint fossils are very obvious, reflecting behavioral information such as the speed of dinosaurs walking. The footprint point preserves a wealth of sedimentary structures and fossils such as wave marks, mud cracks, and insect traces, showing the life of dinosaurs in the dry season lakeside (lakeshore zone or lake beach) activities (such as drinking water, eating). Among them, the carnivorous theropods are three-toed and have very sharp claw marks; the dinosaurs in the theropods are bi-toed, and the sauropod footprints are composed of front and back footprints, all of which resemble large round pits, and some of the posterior footprints have about three thick claw marks; the posterior footprints of the duck-billed dragon footprints are three-toed, and the toes are shaped like clover leaves, and the claw marks are very rough.
According to reports, the dinosaur footprint fossils found in Shanghang this time are the first discoveries of dinosaurs and their remains in Fujian Province, which is of landmark significance for the study of dinosaurs in Fujian Province, thus ending the history of "no dinosaurs" in Fujian Province, and is of great significance to the study of the paleoenvironment, paleogeography, paleoecology and global distribution and evolution of dinosaur fauna in the late Cretaceous period of about 80 million years in western Fujian.
Duck-billed dragon footprints
The Cultural Relics Bureau took the lead in setting up a dinosaur search project in Fujian, and there were major discoveries on the second day of the inspection
No one expected to find evidence of dinosaurs living in Fujian on the second day of the expedition.
According to reports, Fujian is located in the east of Jiangxi, geographically connected, Jiangxi's red layer has found a large number of dinosaur egg fossils and a small number of skeleton fossils. The eastern part of Fujian Province is covered by a large amount of volcanic rock due to the movement of Yanshan Mountain, but only western Fujian and northern Fujian have a small number of Late Cretaceous red layers, which are scattered and broken between a large number of fault zones.
In September 2020, when the relevant leaders of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee and the Propaganda Department were guiding the work at the Yingliang Stone Natural History Museum in Fujian Province, after learning about the relationship between Fujian and dinosaur resources, they instructed that since Fujian Province did have the hope of discovering dinosaurs, they should try their best. Under the guidance of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee and the Propaganda Department, led by the Fujian Provincial Bureau of Cultural Relics, the Fujian Yingliang Stone Natural History Museum formed a joint expedition team with china university of geosciences (Beijing) to set up a dinosaur search project in Fujian.
Duck-billed dragon footprints in one step
On November 6, 2020, the Fujian Provincial Dinosaur Resources Joint Expedition team went deep into western Fujian to carry out a joint investigation, the first stop being Shanghang County, Longyan City, western Fujian. Before departure, the expedition team consulted a large number of geological data from Fujian Province, and combined with satellite maps, delineated a number of preset investigation areas.
On the morning of the 7th, the expedition team surveyed the red layer around Shanghang County and found no valuable clues.
In the afternoon, the expedition team took some clues around the county seat. At about 16:00 on the 7th, miao Shengshui, a member of the inspection team, found a bare hillside on the side of the Longxiang Avenue Experimental Middle School, and the large area of sandstone layers was very eye-catching.
After getting off the bus, Niu Kecheng, executive director of the Yingliang Stone Natural History Museum in Fujian Province, climbed the slope first, and found some scattered mud cracks, wave marks and insect traces on the slope, so he called xing lida and others who were down the slope to come up and investigate. At this time, Xing Lida and his student team members observed the insect traces on some collapsed rocks under the slope, and were surprised by the exquisiteness of these geological relics. At this point, everyone realized that all the signs here suggested that dinosaur footprints were more likely.
Large dinosaur footprints
Xing Lida had just climbed the hillside and saw a well-preserved, clear three-toed footprint with very obvious claw marks at the end of the footprint, which must have been left by animals, "Dinosaur footprints!" This is definitely a dinosaur footprint! ”。
Soon, the expedition team found more dinosaur footprints on the surrounding rock faces. On November 8, 2020, after further cleaning the level where the fossils were located, ten, dozens, and hundreds of footprints were gradually discovered, thus unveiling the prelude to the great discovery of the Dinosaur Footprints group in Shanghang.
After the expedition team reported the discovery to Shanghang County, it attracted the attention of the local city and county, and the relevant departments immediately took a series of emergency protection measures such as setting up fences, installing monitoring equipment, hiring security personnel to guard, and carrying out emergency protection.
From December 15th to 17th, Wang Lixia, full-time deputy director of the Office of the National Paleontological Fossil Expert Committee, Peng Guangzhao, member of the National Paleontological Fossil Expert Committee and former director of the Sichuan Zigong Dinosaur Museum, Li Daqing, member of the National Paleontological Fossil Expert Committee and director of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology of Gansu Agricultural University, accompanied by Su Jun, deputy director of the Land and Resources Archive of the Department of Natural Resources of Fujian Province, and Niu Kecheng, executive director of the Yingliang Stone Natural History Museum of Fujian Province, were accompanied by Su Jun, deputy director of the Land and Resources Archives of the Department of Natural Resources of Fujian Province, and Niu Kecheng, executive director of the Yingliang Stone Natural History Museum of Fujian Province. Arrived at the footprint point for inspection and identification.
After investigation and identification, experts agreed that the area of the dinosaur footprint site found this time is about 1600 square meters, which is the best preserved, largest area and highest diversity of late Cretaceous dinosaur footprints found in China.
Dinosaur footprints at the level are very dense
Can other dinosaur fossils be found in Fujian?
Does this mean that fossilized dinosaur bones can still be found around?
Peng Guangzhao said that Fujian's potential in dinosaur fossil resources is still very large, from geological data, Fujian dinosaur life Mesozoic strata are still very extensive, especially with Jiangxi, Guangdong adjacent to some basins in western Fujian, such as Shanghang, Liancheng, Wuping, Zhangping, Yong'an, etc., the surface of the exposed is mostly the dinosaur era of the land sediment strata, they and found a large number of dinosaur bones and dinosaur egg fossils in Jiangxi Ganzhou, Guangdong Heyuan and other areas of the sedimentary environment is similar.
Peng Guangzhao introduced that dinosaur footprint fossils are fossils formed by the traces left by dinosaurs walking on the soft silt ground when they were alive, called relic fossils. Dinosaur skeleton fossils are after the death of dinosaurs, their corpses themselves are quickly buried by sediment, muscles, internal organs and other soft parts will usually decay, but their bones, teeth, decks and other relatively hard parts will be preserved to form fossils, known as physical fossils. Dinosaur footprints and dinosaur skeleton fossils are formed in different natures and different buried environmental states of dinosaurs, so in general, in a relatively small range of the same formation, dinosaur footprints and dinosaur skeleton fossils will not appear at the same time, but if in a relatively large area (such as the Shanghang Basin), different sedimentary environments, different geological age of the strata, both are possible to find. This is easy to understand, since there are dinosaurs living in this area, they may also be preserved as fossils somewhere after death, which is the case in other dinosaur fossil producing areas such as Sichuan, Yunnan, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Shandong, Jiangxi, Guangdong, etc.
Editor-in-Charge: Xu Di