Updated: 2021-4-16 8:46:33 Source: Jiaozuo Evening News
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Fig. (1) Trilobite fossil specimen.
Figure (2) At Wang Deshun's home, Zheng Deshun (first from the right) popularizes fossil specimen knowledge to students.
Fig. (3) Fossil specimens of brachiopods.
Fig. (4) Plant fossil specimens.
Figure (5) Wang Deshun (left) and Zheng Deshun inaugurated the practice base of Henan Polytechnic University Students Geoscience Exploration Association.
As the saying goes: rely on the mountain to eat the mountain, rely on the water to draft water. The children of Huaichuan lived at the foot of the Taihang Mountains, sheltered by the mountains, with smooth winds and rains and abundant grains. Did you know that this mountain that shielded us from the wind and rain was an ocean hundreds of millions of years ago? Today, we walked into Xicun Township, Xiuwu County, to unveil the mystery of the Taihang Mountains.
The origin of the "fossil village"
Persimmon Village is surrounded by mountains on three sides and is named after the delicious persimmons. According to the old people in the village, no matter what kind of persimmon tree, as long as it grows in persimmon village, the fruit produced is sweeter than the fruit of other villages.
There are more than 270 people in Persimmon Village, most of the houses are built on the mountain, warm in winter and cool in summer, and the villagers still live a leisurely life of sunrise and sunset.
Persimmon Garden Village has a villager named Wang Deshun, who spent more than 20 years in the Taihang Mountains to find more than 200 fossils of ancient biological species, which attracted the attention of geologists at home and abroad, who came to this small mountain village and found a large number of geological materials with scientific research value in the Taihang Mountains.
With his expertise and fossil collection, Wang Deshun's fossil network created by the Nanjing Institute of Paleontology was quite influential, becoming a veritable grassroots fossil expert, and Persimmon Garden Village has become a well-known "fossil village" in the industry. In March 2013, the Field Geology Internship Station of the College of Resources and Environment of Henan Polytechnic University was listed here; in October 2020, the practice base of the Geological Exploration Association for College Students of Henan Polytechnic University was listed here; in March 2021, the Coking Coal Literature Mining And Wind Creation Base was listed here.
Fossils in the Taihang Mountains
The School of Resources and Environment of Henan Polytechnic University leads the country in the research of relic fossils, and the fossil specimens of relics are unparalleled in China. A few years ago, with the assistance of Wang Deshun, several professors of the college who specialized in the study of fossil ruins came to the back mountain of Persimmon Village to conduct geological surveys and found a rare fossil of moving algae traces, and published this discovery in famous foreign journals. This discovery once again made the fossils of the Taihang Mountains famous all over the world.
Zheng Deshun, deputy dean, professor and doctoral supervisor of the School of Resources and Environment of Henan Polytechnic University, especially likes to go to Taihang Mountain to conduct scientific research, and he also moves the classroom into Taihang Mountain to let the students of the college learn on the ground. Zheng Deshun said that the geological landform of the Taihang Mountains can be traced back to billions of years ago, and it is like a huge treasure that can bring surprises to everyone.
In order to find out the past and present lives of the Taihang Mountains, with the help of Zheng Deshun, the reporter viewed relevant academic papers, one of which read: A large tectonic movement (Songyang Movement) occurred in the Taihang Mountains in the northern Part of Jiaozuo at the end of the Archaic Archean period about 2.5 billion years ago, so that the land crust in the area began to grow, forming the deepest crystalline substrate today.
From 1.6 billion years ago to 1 billion years ago (middle Proterozoic), the northern mountains of Jiaozuo rose and fell as a whole, and during the period of decline, a large amount of land-based clastic deposits were accepted, forming a large set of quartz sandstones buried deep in the ground (there is an outcrop in the Red Stone Gorge of Yuntai Mountain); during the ascending period, this land was eroded again, which also caused about 400 million years of stratigraphic loss between the underground red quartz sandstone and the upper Cambrian carbonate rock.
By 542 million years ago (early Cambrian), seawater was gradually withdrawn, thus transforming continental sediments. Since then, it has undergone many tectonic movements (such as the Yanshan Movement and the Himalayan Movement), forming the low mountainous landform seen in the Taihang Mountains in the north of Jiaozuo today.
In the process of experiencing many vicissitudes in this area, a large number of paleontologists and plants were buried deep underground at the same time, forming fossils. Today, the biological fossils visible in the Cambrian, Ordovician and Permian strata of the Taihang Mountains in the north of Jiaozuo include cephalopods, coelenterates, brachiopods, gastropods, mesozoans, and fossils such as crustaceans and trilobites can be seen locally, and a large number of plant fossils can be seen in the Carboniferous strata. These fossils bear witness to the geological changes in the northern mountains of Jiaozuo and provide valuable physical evidence for studying the geological genesis of the Taihang Mountains.
Expert in grassroots fossils
In Wang Deshun's home, the reporter saw all kinds of fossils in his collection, many of which were orphans, and a geological fossil museum once wanted to buy them at a high price, but Wang Deshun refused.
Of course, Wang Deshun also has "stupid" times.
Every time a new fossil is discovered, Wang Deshun will hang it on the fossil network and discuss and study it with experts, scholars and fans around the world. Once, a professor at a university in Nanjing wrote a paper and needed a fossil specimen collected by Wang Deshun, and Wang Deshun did not say a word and provided the fossil to the other party for free.
"These fossils can only be a collection in my hands, and in the hands of scientists, they have immeasurable scientific research value." As long as I can contribute to the country, I will send more fossils. Wang Deshun said.
Speaking of Wang Deshun's hobbies, we have to start from more than 20 years ago. At that time, Wang Deshun was working at the Zhucun Mine of the Coking Coal Group. During his work, he found some ancient plant fossils from cracked gangues, which he loved so vividly. Wang Deshun has lived in the mountains since he was a child, and he has seen similar things on the stones in the mountains. So, in his spare time, he went into the mountains to look for fossils.
The first time he entered the mountain, Wang Deshun found a stone with fish spines, and in addition to his excitement, he was very depressed, because he did not know what the name of the stone was, nor did he know whether it was a fossil. After returning home, Wang Deshun first looked for his own answers, and after comparing various pictures, there was still no result. Eventually, with the help of a friend, Wang Deshun found an expert from the School of Resources and Environment of Henan Polytechnic University. The expert answered in detail, giving him a better understanding of the fossil specimen. With the help of experts from the School of Resources and Environment of Henan Polytechnic University, Wang Deshun has become more and more deep in geological research, not only mastering a lot of professional knowledge, but also finding more than 200 paleontological species in the Taihang Mountains, accumulating more than 3,000 fossil specimens.
Wang Deshun introduced to reporters that the Cambrian, Ordovician, Carboniferous and Permian strata of the Paleozoic in the Taihang Mountains are rich in fossils, and the Silurian and Devonian strata are missing due to the ablation of the ascending period of tectonic movement. Among his fossil specimens are fossil specimens of cephalopods, coelenterates, brachiopods, gastropods, mesozoans, as well as fossil specimens of crustaceans and trilobites, as well as fossil plants in Carboniferous formations.
Regarding fossils, what Wang Deshun wants to say most is that the formation of fossils takes hundreds of millions of years, and it has witnessed the changes in climate, mountains and oceans. He is willing to share the secrets of the Taihang Mountains with everyone and let more citizens know how amazing the place where we live is.