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"Flowers" were discovered about 170 million years ago! Jurassic angiosperms add new evidence

author:China Youth Network
"Flowers" were discovered about 170 million years ago! Jurassic angiosperms add new evidence

The scientific research team of Ningxia Geological Museum relied on some plant fossil specimens collected by the project. Photo courtesy of Ningxia Geological Museum

People's Daily Yinchuan, April 7 (Yan Mengjie) Recently, the Ningxia Geological Museum and the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou University and Northwest University carried out multi-party cooperation, using Micro-CT technology to conduct in-depth and detailed research on a class of fossil materials from the Middle Jurassic strata in northwest China, and confirmed the angiosperm properties of these fossils. The findings were published in the Swiss academic journal Life. This is also the earliest fossil record of angiosperms in the Northwest Territories, known as "flowers", which comes from the Jurassic period, which is about 170 million years old.

"Flowers" were discovered about 170 million years ago! Jurassic angiosperms add new evidence

Field work scene. Photo courtesy of Ningxia Geological Museum

"For the origin of angiosperms, Western paleobotanists have long held the view that there were no angiosperms before the Cretaceous, and this study not only shows that angiosperms really existed in the Jurassic, but also shows that angiosperms were widely distributed and reached a certain degree of prosperity in northwest China at that time." Zhao Ya, an engineer at the Ningxia Geological Museum and the project leader of the "Jurassic Plant Fossils Research in Ningxia Lingwu Area", said that the fossils studied came from Qinghai Province, Gansu Province and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in the northwest region, so the researchers named it Qingganninginfructus formosa. This research specimen in Ningxia was collected at the beginning of the establishment of the Ningxia Geological Museum and has been treasured as a museum exhibition collection. In 2021, the museum researchers recognized that the specimen had high scientific research value through the study of the fossil specimen of Jurassic plants in the collection, and after field investigation, declared the Ningxia Natural Science Foundation project "Jurassic Plant Fossil Research in Lingwu Area of Ningxia". Later, researcher Wang Xin of Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, was invited to guide the work, which further confirmed the special features of the specimen, and then carried out multi-party cooperation to study it.

"Flowers" were discovered about 170 million years ago! Jurassic angiosperms add new evidence

The beautiful green ganning fruit and the ovules/seeds it contains (picture from the paper). Photo courtesy of Ningxia Geological Museum

It is reported that relying on the project of "Jurassic Plant Fossils Research in Ningxia Lingwu Area", the Ningxia Geological Museum has collected more than 100 plant fossil specimens, which have been identified by experts from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and more than ten genera and species are newly discovered in Ningxia. At present, the scientific research team of Ningxia Geological Museum is carrying out further related research work.

Source: People's Daily - Ningxia Channel

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