Life science is difficult for us to understand, but if we read it from the perspective of time, it is a story full of fantasy. "Cambrian", the name of a geological age, about 500 million years ago, staged the famous "Cambrian Life Explosion" in the history of earth's biological history in the Maotian Mountain in Chengjiang County, Yunnan Province.
On July 1, 30 years ago, on the shore of the mysterious Fuxian Lake, under the Hat Tianshan Mountain, Professor Hou Xianguang knocked out a small fossil with a hammer, and the discovery of direct evidence of the Cambrian biological explosion shocked the world.
April 17, 27 years ago. The Nanjing Institute of Paleontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences released a shocking news: on July 1, 1984, the Chengjiang animal fossil group found in the Maotian Mountain on the shore of Fuxian Lake in Yunnan Province, China, is 530 million years old, and its fossils are exquisite and numerous, making it the largest paleontology in the world.
On July 1, 2012, at 22:22 Beijing time (18:22 St. Petersburg time), at the Smolny Palace in St. Petersburg, the Chengjiang Fossil Site was officially inscribed on the World Heritage List at the 36th Session of the World Heritage Committee. It became the first and only fossil-like natural heritage site ever created in China.
A total of more than 120 species of Chengjiang animal fossils have been found, which are divided into more than 10 animals such as sponges, coelenterates, linear animals, gill-draggers, actinopods, leafpods, brachiopods, molluscs, chordates, and some strange taxa with unknown taxonomic locations; in addition, there are a variety of symbiotic algae.
"Now the origin of life for almost all species is here." According to the staff of the Chengjiang Fossil Land Museum of Hat Tianshan Mountain, The Hat Tianshan is the best empirical evidence of the Cambrian life explosion, with a total of more than 200 kinds of animal species fossils from 530 million years ago, many of which are still clearly visible in the skin, nerves, antennae, and internal organs, and the degree of preservation is perfect, which is extremely rare in the history of archaeology around the world.
The distant ancestors of salmon, which people particularly love to eat, can also be found here, and it is one of the important discoveries of the Chengjiang fossil site of the MaotianShan Mountains - yunnan insects. The staff member said that the "Yunnan worm" is also the ancestor of all vertebrates today, and its discovery is a major breakthrough in the history of the evolution of life.
Here, you can also see the wonderful "flower" of the seabed - the goblet worm, the oldest fish "Haikou fish", the Ordovician underwater overlord "soft tongue snail", and the now very famous Pippi shrimp's distant ancestor "pinnacle worm"...
In the past, when I walked into the Hat Tian Shan Fauna and picked up a stone and pulled it open, it was easy to see the traces of the fossil. Now under the protection of the party committee and government, this fossil land is better protected, and no unit or individual can dig up fossils privately.
After artificial restoration, the following restored paleontology can now be seen in the fossil exhibition hall.
So far, more than 30,000 pieces and more than 100 kinds of paleontological fossils have been collected and excavated in the MaotianShan Mountains, covering various categories of modern organisms. In addition, many new ancient species have been discovered here, and paleontologists have named these new species after excavation sites, so there are such as Fuxian Lake Worm, Hat Tianshan Worm, Yunnan Worm, Kunming Worm and Trans horse worm. Therefore, the Chengjiang animal fossil group has undoubtedly become the oldest and most complete mollusk fossil group found in the world.
Source: Fuxian Lake
Original title: The representative place of the Cambrian life explosion 530 million years ago - Chengjiang Hat Tianshan Biological Fossil Group
Editor: The City Times pays a little attention to Hu Nan
Review: Li Hao