The water in the ancient well inside the temple does not dry up continuously
Lin Bizhong, chief cultural relics expert in Chongqing, found fossils of horn stones in the xiushan river cover
The traces on the temple stele resemble fossilized horn stones
Jiming Temple was founded during the Eastern Han Dynasty
Jiming Temple surrounded by alpine trees
Chengkou County is located at the junction of Chongqing, Sichuan and Shaanxi provinces (cities) and has rich animal and plant resources.
Walk south from the county seat and reach Jiming Township for nearly 90 kilometers. This is a place with a steep slope, the lowest altitude is 660 meters, the highest altitude is 2042 meters, and the famous local religious tourist attraction Jiming Temple is located here.
Recently, the reporter inadvertently discovered a secret that has been hidden in Jiming Temple for a long time during a local interview.
The water of the ancient well does not dry up continuously
According to local literature, Jiming Temple was founded during the Eastern Han Dynasty. According to legend, when Liu Xiu, the Emperor of Han Guangwu, passed by the temple under construction, it coincided with the rooster crying. Therefore, the temple got its name Jiming Temple.
On May 15, the temple in front of the reporter was as clean as usual, and whenever a visitor stepped into the temple, the monk took out a clean porcelain bowl, poured water into the ancient well, and warmly handed it over.
The ancient well is in the back of the courtyard, known as the White Crane Well, and the water inside does not dry up continuously. Local historical records record that the tea produced on the back hill of the temple was once offered as a tribute to the Qianlong Emperor. The tea here is brewed with white crane well water, and the fragrance is fragrant. To this end, the Qianlong Emperor wrote with a stroke of his pen the words "Water in the White Crane Well, Tea in the Chicken Courtyard".
Fossils have bones and stripes that are white
The Jiming Temple is heavily covered, and the layers of pavilions are connected in a winding way. Inside the temple, it is divided into two sections, the front hall is the Tibetan scripture building, and the rear hall is the Guanyin Hall.
In front of the main entrance of the front hall, a stone caught the attention of reporters. If you look closely, it is suspected that there are paleontological remains, which are white, as if they have bone and veins.
Seeing the reporter's surprised look, a monk explained: "There may be many relics such as the stone flower platforms, stone pillars, and stone walls in the temple, but people can't see them with the naked eye." ”
It looks like a feather from a distance
Another monk led the reporter into the temple hall where the Buddha statue was enshrined, pointed to a stone tablet, and asked the reporter to take a closer look.
Sure enough, as seen earlier on the stone at the front entrance of the front hall, the surface of the stele also shows the remains of suspected ancient creatures. The difference is that the remains of the ancient creatures on the stele are more clearly formed, resembling insects, and are brown instead of white.
Up close, this insect-like fossil-like object seems to have a stalk like a plant stem, and the ends of the stalk seem to have tentacles. From a distance, it looks like a feather, and the tentacles look like fern leaves.
Could it be a plant fossil?
In recent years, many tourists who come to visit and worship the Buddha have also discovered this secret. Everyone reacted almost unanimously, and they all asked: How did a worm come out of the stone stele. The monk scratched his head and said.
The monk said that as to whether it was an insect fossil or a leaf fossil, everyone was puzzled.
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Is this a sea lily fossil?
Local rural auxiliary roads often use this stone
According to the relevant personnel of the forestry department of Chengkou County, the objects on the stone stele of Jiming Temple seen by the reporter are indeed fossils of ancient organisms. Previously, the local forestry department judged that the fossil may be a echinoderm that first appeared in the Early Cambrian Period - sea lilies.
According to reports, the sea lily is an ancient invertebrate, and in the ocean hundreds of millions of years ago, it was everywhere. Because of its multiple brachiopods, its flower-shaped, feathery body, calcareous shell on its surface, and its resemblance to a plant, it is called a sea lily.
Relevant personnel of the county's forestry department speculated that the fossil sea lily on the stone stele of Jiming Temple may be a fossil of sea lily fragments.
The reporter consulted relevant information and learned that the Paleozoic Carboniferous, the number of sea lilies is huge, the variety is large, and the moss and brachiopods form a large area of grassland-like coverage on the seabed, 250 million years met the Pre-Permian-Triassic extinction event, 90% of marine species went extinct, and sea lilies quickly withdrew from the historical stage. The calcareous stems and calyxes formed after the death of sea lilies became fossils, scattered due to the disturbance of the sea, and lost their beautiful posture like lilies. Archaeology has found that there are more than 5,000 kinds of sea lily fossils, and some limestone formations are also composed of sea lily fossils.
"In some villages and towns, the pavement and steps are paved with rocks made of local materials. Over time, the surface of these stones has been polished very smoothly, and if you look closely, you will find some beautiful patterns. The relevant personnel of the county's forestry department told reporters that if the surface of the stone shows a flower-like, feather-like, five-pointed star-shaped, and circle-like object, it is likely to be a sea lily fossil.
Does it belong to the fossilized hornstone?
It was formed more than 100 million years ago
Are the fossils on the stone stele of Jiming Temple animal fossils or plant fossils? Why is it in a temple in the mountain forest of Chengkou County?
Lin Bizhong, chief cultural relics expert of Chongqing and vice president of the Chongqing Municipal Society of Culture and History, introduced that according to the relevant historical and cultural records of Jiming Temple and the fossil form shown in the pictures, the fossil of the ancient organism belongs to the fossil of horn stone. "Hornstones, which are paleoconts, were the most widely distributed cephalopods in the ocean during the Ordovician period, and were still widely distributed in the oceans until the Jurassic period, with a hard shell, and belonged to cephalopods."
"This animal first appeared 440 million years ago, and as the name suggests, the hornstone shell is shaped like the horns of an ox or a sheep, and is generally straight, bent or coiled." Lin Bizhong said that after the death of the horn stone, the flesh is usually difficult to preserve, and only the hard shell can be preserved and turned into a fossil.
Lin Bizhong introduced that the appearance of the horned stone shell is not necessarily smooth, and the surface of the shell has different ornaments, such as nodules, tumors, various horizontal stripes, vertical stripes, etc., and the structure of the next door and body tube in the body is also very different. China's horn fossil resources are very rich, ordos horn stone, Amen horn stone, gray horn stone in the northern Ordovician strata, aurora horn stone, pan horn stone, michlin horn stone in the southern Ordovician strata are representative genera.
Lin Bizhong analyzed that the fossil horn stone on the stone stele of Jiming Temple is conical in shape, and the shell has a clear spiral line. Such fossils are very common and are found in marine formations around the world, especially in limestone. The extant Nautilus is one of the descendants of hornstones.
"The Sichuan Basin has undergone vicissitudes from the sea basin to the lake basin to the land basin." Lin Bizhong said that during the sea basin period, the Sichuan basin belonged to the Yangtze Lutai part, called Sichuan Lutai, and experienced two large-scale sea immersion. The first time began in the Cambrian period more than 500 million years ago and continued to the Silurian period more than 370 million years ago, constantly sinking into an ocean basin. The Caledonian Movement occurred during the Silurian period, and the rest of the region rose to land except for the continued sinking of the Longmen Mountain Trough in the west. At the end of the Carboniferous Period 270 million years ago, a larger second sea immersion occurred, and the Sichuan Basin was once again occupied by the ocean. During the Permian period, land and sea alternated to form coal mines such as Nantong, Matsuzao and Tianfu near Chongqing. At the end of the Permian Period, magma erupted from the western part of the basin, generating basalt around the small golden dome of Mount Emei and Qingyin Pavilion.
"During the Triassic Indochina Movement 190 million years ago, the edge of the basin gradually rose into mountains, the flooded area gradually rose to land, and the sea basin turned into a lake basin, and the lake water occupied almost the entire territory of the present-day Sichuan Basin, called Shu Lake, ending the history of sea immersion." Lin Bizhong said that the fossil horn stone in the Jiming Temple in Chengkou County was formed at this stage.
Lin Bizhong introduced that in the long 100 million years of the Mesozoic Era, the climate of the Sichuan Basin was warm and humid, with ferns, cycads and gymnosperms growing everywhere, and reptiles and dinosaurs dominated for a while.
Lin Bizhong believes that the fossil remains of ancient organisms that appear in Jiming Temple provide good scientific research value for local geological, humanistic, archaeological and other aspects of historical research. Chongqing Evening News - Upstream News reporter Li Langwen correspondent Yang Xialin photo
(Editor-in-charge: Gao Hongxia, Luo Yu)