In october 2021, following the footsteps of the Frenchman Armand David and the earliest namer of the American geologist Rehe Biota, a group of more than a dozen experts from Peking University and Beijing Capital Normal University, accompanied by the local authorities of the Lingyuan Municipal Party Committee and Municipal Government, conducted a field investigation for The World Natural Heritage Application for Lingyuan in Liaoning Province, the site of the first fossil of the Rehe Biota, Liaoning Province, in an attempt to restore the discovery of the first fossil of the Rehe Biota.
Big new house in the autumn breeze
At this time, the land of western Liaoning in October was fruitful and a scene of harvest. The faint autumn wind seems to gently tell people about the mystery of this land, the geological changes of 100 million years have made the vicissitudes of sangtian an eternal hot land in western Liaoning, and people who have lived in this land for generations may not know the historical story of hundreds of millions of years of earth life history buried under this vast wilderness.
In 1988, the Chaoyang Municipal Government erected a monument to the provincial cultural relics protection unit of the fish fossil production area
In 1862, the naturalist and missionary Frenchman Armand David joined the mission and was soon sent to Beijing, the capital of the mysterious ancient oriental country. In addition to his missionary work, he began collecting materials for a natural museum. This French missionary was very dedicated, according to records, there are more than 1,200 kinds of birds in China, he collected more than 800 kinds, and the most we ordinary people have seen is only one or two hundred species. It is said that China's elk and giant pandas were named by him and introduced abroad.
While in Beijing, a believer came to report to him: "Father, in the name of God, I swear that somewhere in the lingyuan of the Rehe River I have really found some fish swimming on the stones of some house!" "Oh my God, that's too romantic. A few days later, Armand David came to Rehe Province, and when he inspected the vicinity of Lingyuan, he found that many thin pale yellow slabs were found on the stone walls of many peasant houses near the Daxin house in Lingyuan City, western Liaoning Province, and many small fish were scattered on the stone slabs. David gleefully and amazed to collect a batch of fish fossils, which were later named "Dai's wolffin fish", which was the first time in modern times that the Rehe fossil was discovered by paleontological researchers, so the Dai's wolffin fish is also known as the first fossil of the Rehe biota. The discovery of the Dai's wolffin has unveiled the mystery of the birthplace of the world's famous ancient creatures in Western Liaoning, and the history of life on earth has been slowly rewritten unconsciously.
In 1863, David transferred the fossils to the French fish expert Sauvage. In 1880, Sovaz published a paper stating that the fossilized fish was a new species of the family, and in gratitude to Father David, Sovaz named the new species after David. However, the classification of Sovaz is not accurate. Until 1901, the famous British ichthyologist Woodward pointed out that the fossilized fish should actually be classified in the genus Wolffin, but in order to be consistent with the previous name, while commemorating Father David, who died a year ago, the species name of the fish remained unchanged. Regrettably, the positive specimen of the Sovaz study was thought to have been lost in 1968.
Later studies have shown that the Daisy is an extinct eukeletal fish, and fossils are mostly found in the Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous Rehe biota of the Mesozoic Era. The tarpon fin is spindle-shaped, with a straight dorsal margin and fine tapered teeth, which is a freshwater fish. There are many types of wolffin fish, and wolffin fish fossils are mainly distributed in the north of China. Lingyuan City, Liaoning Province, China, has the largest number of fish, is one of the most widely distributed fish in China, wolffin fish are generally well preserved, is buried in situ in still water environment. Judging from the density of fossil burials, the fish seems to have the habit of swimming in groups. This fish is a freshwater fish endemic to East Asia in the late Mesozoic Era, widely distributed in Siberia, Mongolia, Korea and the northern waters of China, and is one of the three main representative organisms of the Rehe biota, and the only vertebrate among the three representative organisms.
The author's collection of wolffin fish fossils
Since the First National Stratigraphic Conference in 1959, the formation containing wolffin fish has generally been determined as the Late Jurassic in China, and the disappearance of the wolffin fish population is used as the boundary between the Jurassic and Cretaceous. However, scholars who study mesomorphs, paleontology, and some other phyla have been thinking of the era of wolffin fish as the Early Cretaceous, and the debate has continued for decades. As a result, the wolffin fish has attracted the attention of geological paleontologists. As research work has progressed, many paleoichthymiths believe that the wolffin fish lived from the Late Jurassic to the early Protozoic, while the latest view is that its age is early chalk.
This fish fossil is actually found in many places in Lingyuan, Liaoning, and the number of them is difficult to calculate. If you look at the place where the wolffin fish is produced, you will be surprised, pieces of well-preserved wolffin fish fossils on the thin rocks, safely staring into the distance, some fossil plates gathered hundreds of wolffin fish.
During the Late Jurassic Period, the western part of Liaoning, where the Rehe biota, was once a sea and lake, where many aquatic animals such as fish, amphibians, and aquatic reptiles were found. One day in the early Cretaceous, a sudden volcanic eruption alarmed the fish in the water, and they fled. But it was too late, the fierce volcanic eruption spewed hot flames baked wolffin fish had nowhere to escape, accompanied by volcanic eruptions of volcanic ash fell on the surface of the lake, the fish did not escape with all their strength, and finally covered with scorching volcanic ash. Due to the fineness of volcanic ash, coupled with the high temperature, the fish were tightly wrapped up, and later, with the geological changes, it was covered with a later strata, and time passed, and the fish tightly wrapped in volcanic ash formed fossils, so the wolffin fish we see today is a row next to each other, which is an ancient wonderful story left by a disaster in nature to our descendants.
In the earliest records of fish fossils in ancient Chinese texts, when the "Classic of Mountains and Seas" and the "Classic of Mountains and Seas and overseas western classics" said: "The dragon fish tomb lives in its north, shaped like a beaver, and is on a day off." That is, there are divine witches who multiply this to do the nine wildernesses. One day turtle, in Amano Kita, which is also a fish, such as carp. According to Guo Zou's note, the dragon fish is the dragon carp, and the nine wilds are the world. It can be seen that what is said here is a carp-like fish fossil that can be given to the divine to ride and travel all over the world.
According to research, more than 2,000 years ago, fish fossils have different names such as ichthyosaurs, saltfish, scale fish, crocodiles, turtles, etc., which can be seen that fish fossils were known by ancient Chinese people a long time ago. But at that time, people did not understand why the fish would run into the stone, so they had to resort to myths, so the nonsense of letting the divine ride on it to travel the world was also born. Obviously, it is ridiculous to link fish fossils to the sacred ride around the world, and animal fossils to water and fire monsters, but the fact that our ancestors noticed fish animal fossils very early on has some significance for us who study the history of science.
More than 300 YEARS AGO, someone collected a fish fossil from Asia Minor, and he did not understand it - fish live in water, why did they run into the rocks? So he showed this specimen to aristotle, the famous philosopher of ancient Greece, and asked him to be reasonable. However, Aristotle had never seen such a stone "strange fish", so he had to pretend to be a troublemaker and said: "This is because some time ago the flood swelled and spread to the slopes of the lake, and the swimming fish also climbed the mountain with the water, and laid fish eggs in the cracks in the rocks, and these fish eggs later became fish in the rocks." Obviously, this explanation is not scientifically reasonable, even if the fish eggs fall into the rock cracks during the flood, when the flood recedes and dry up, how can the fish eggs become juvenile fish, and how can they survive? Moreover, there is a difference between fossil fish and live fish, how can this be explained? Therefore, Aristotle's words are all arbitrary and open-mouthed. But Aristotle has a little merit in his understanding, after all, he associates fossils with living things.
Fish fossils are easier to identify than mammalian fossils, so the records of fish fossils in ancient books are more scientifically reasonable. China records fish fossils earlier and better when the late Years of the Eastern Jin Dynasty Shen Huaiyuan's "Nanyue Zhi", the third of the book said that there is a fish stone mountain in Xiangxiang, Hunan, the rock is black, the layer is extremely thin, such as mica. Peeling it off, you can see the fish fossil, which is complete and several inches long. The head, tail, scales, and stripes of the fish are all realistic, as if they were carved out. Burn it with fire, and it also emits fishy smell! According to the current geological survey, it is proved that Shen Huaiyuan's account is basically correct, and there are indeed fish fossil groups in the local Tertiary strata, including the carp bone-lipped fish and the bao family lake sword abalone. However, whether the fish fossil will emit a fishy gas after burning it may be exaggerated.
The explanation of the causes of fish fossils is most brilliantly discussed by Du Guan in the Southern Song Dynasty in the "Yunlin Stone Spectrum". He wrote: "The place name Ichthyosaurus in Longxi (present-day southeast of Weiyuan, Gansu), dug up the ground to take stones, broke it, and obtained it, and there were many fish shapes, which were no different from those produced in Xiangxiang. Isn't it the ancient Boze, in which the fish is born, because the mountains are decadent, and the soil has been condensed into stone for a long time, and the song is sung? This means that there is a place called Ichthyosaur in the southeast of Weiyuan, Gansu, where many fish fossils are found when digging for stones, which are no different from the fish fossils produced in Xiangxiang, Hunan. Could it be that in ancient times, this place was originally a low-lying swampland, and the fish lived in the water, and then due to the collapse of the cliffs in Zebian, the soil block filled the swamp, and after a long time, the soil block condensed into rock, and the dead fish body became fossilized? Using modern stone knowledge to measure this discussion of Du Guan, it seems that it is also correct, he not only expounded the formation process and burial conditions of fish fossils, but also reasonably deduced the local natural environment at that time on the discovery of fish fossils. This scientifically based method of reasoning is still effectively applied to the study of paleogeography and geological changes to this day. Compared with the relevant views of predecessors, DuGuan has made great progress.
In the Qing Dynasty's "Tazigou Chronicle", the record of the wolffin fish in the famous fossil production area of the Rehe biota Lingyuan (called Tazigou in the Qing Dynasty) hot water soup Xiaochengzi Daxin House is more detailed, and they call the wolffin fish fossils "fish stones".
In the "Chronicle of Tazigou", it is said that there is a northwest name of the village in the northwest of Tazigou, and there are mountains on all sides, and the foothills of the Wuli Mountain in the north of the village can be excavated. Its color is either blue or yellow, and it is a stone piece, jagged, about a foot long or seven or eight inches, and a width of three or four inches to five or six inches. Its thickness can be revealed as two or three layers, and the surface is fish-shaped, faintly like a painting. First of all, the people dug stones, and rumors were heard from near and far. The good deeds are often dug up arbitrarily, and now their stones are rare. And consider who this stone came from, until the ignorant. If you have gained only two or three inches in width and length, there is no ruler, and if you look closely at the fish shape of its stone, its scales and spines can be peeled off, and then peeled off is still stone. When the mountains and rivers rise suddenly, they flow into the sand stains, the water recedes and the fish cannot go, so they are sandwiched in the middle, and they become pieces for a long time, not from the inside, so the layers are there and cannot penetrate deep into the stone, which is very different from the marble's heavenly craftsmanship. Among them, the formation of the "Fish Stone" is very similar to Du Guan's discussion in the "Yunlin Stone Spectrum".
The "Tazigou Chronicle" also records the "Fish Stone Song", which makes extreme artistic exaggeration and imagination for the fossils of wolf fin fish. In the "Fish Stone Song", it is said that "the rugged is a strange shaped stone, and the momentum is like a long whale." In the thirty-six scales of the waves, the dragon gate is not nodding, the green drop moss wen pillow Xiao smoke, driving the suspected borrowing the sea god whip, the Kunming pool water can not be found, he nian flew up to this mountain peak, Linglong is a ghost axe, night and night Wenguang swallowed himself, once remembered the time when he entered the boat to offer Rui. At that time, He du knew Zhou Wu, and the generation of mane was the most distinct. The spirit of the dawn streamer is more crystalline, the heavenly machine is lively and unbroken, and the dragon wants to turn the dragon into a little bit of erqing. (eastward)