At the site of the fossil excavation, Wang Chaolin (first from left) and Zhang Fucheng (second from left) are communicating with scholars from the United Kingdom (first from right). Photo by reporter Dong Lilong
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Fengning found the news that it was suspected of being a new genus of dinosaur fossils, and recently brushed the screen again.
In fact, Fengning, located deep in the Yanshan Mountains, not only has dinosaurs, but also has a rich fossil community - the Rehe biota.
Richard John Oldley, former president of the International Paleontological Association, commented after the field trip: "The Rehe biota is a treasure trove of fossils of paleontology in the world, and Fengning is the night pearl in this treasure house." ”
In 2009, the first non-state-owned museum in our province was built, and these ancient creatures began to see the light of day.
Ancient insect exhibit area in the Fengning Paleontological Fossil Museum. Photo by Wang Jinling
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The museum was collected, and ancient life re-bloomed
Walking into the Fengning Paleontological Fossil Museum, you walk into a Jurassic Park.
A Fengning original feather bird spreads its wings and is spreading its wings; a Manchurian turtle dragging its long tail and probing its brain; a lobster with claws and tentacles, and a dragonfly trying to land. Most of them are fish, or wandering alone in the water, or playing in groups, as well as dinosaurs, crocodiles, salamanders, cicadas, spiders... Each has its own color, each has its own posture.
In fact, these seemingly living beings have long been frozen in a geological movement more than 13,000 years ago. Hundreds of millions of years later, it is this pavilion of less than 300 square meters that has given them new life.
"This is the Chinese sturgeon, unlike the protected animals in the Yangtze River, nor the fish of the same name bought from the wet market; this is the ancestor of the new reeds, reeds and bamboo in Callelai, and lo and behold, it already has a knot." The words of Wang Jinling, a staff member of the exhibition hall, are full of pride, "90% of the animal and plant fossils in this area are produced in Fengning, and most of the rest belong to the Rehe biota." ”
In 1928, The American geologist Greep, who taught at Peking University, pioneered the concept of the Rehe fauna. In the following 90 years, the lands of the original Rehe Provinces such as Northern Hebei and Western Liaoning attracted the attention of scientists around the world because they contained more ancient creatures on this planet.
"The Rehe biota is a treasure trove of fossils of the world's paleontology, and Fengning is the pearl of the night in this treasure house." Richard John Oldley, former president of the International Paleontological Association and professor at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, commented on the fossil resources of Fengning after a field trip.
However, not to mention the outsiders, even most of the locals in Fengning do not know that the land of Fengning hundreds of millions of years ago once had such a vibrant world.
The person who concentrated on showing this world to people was Wang Chaolin, director of the Fengning Paleontological Fossil Museum.
20 years ago, by chance, he was passing through Lingyuan City, Liaoning Province, and he was surprised by the huge sturgeon fossils placed in a fossil shop, which surprised him even more. "At that time, I thought to myself, how can such a good thing be lost to other places?"
Until january 1, 2011, the Regulations on the Protection of Fossil Paleontological Organisms promulgated by the State Council lacked a direct legal basis for fossil protection.
Many local governments also do not understand and manage fossils in place. Some fossil dealers from other places have been stationed in the village for a long time, and the common people have gone up the mountain to dig up and dig up randomly, and the fossils dug out will be taken away by the dealers and thrown away by the bad ones.
Liu Bozhou, a member of the Standing Committee of the CPPCC County Committee who was traveling with Wang Chaolin at that time, served as the director of the county cultural bureau and also felt that the protection of these fossil resources was not trivial. After the two returned, they immediately reported to the county.
Since then, fossil conservation has become a government issue in Fengning. The local government work report mentions the construction of a fossil museum almost every year. However, as a deeply impoverished county, Fengning is short of money.
Wang Chaolin recalled: "The county leaders at that time told me that fossil protection was imminent, but the county had no money, as an entrepreneur in the county, you had to take care of this matter!" ”
Such a verbal invitation, Wang Chaolin took it as a big thing. Now, 20 years later, he has collected more than 10,000 fossils.
"At first, it took several days to get a piece back. Sometimes, after running for half a month, I can't get a piece. "For 20 years, Wang Chaolin has driven a jeep and run all over the ditch forks in the two townships of the main fossil-producing area, Waigou Gate and Sichakou.
"Ordinary people have fixed sales channels, and they don't sell to me at the beginning, only to fossil dealers from the northeast!" Wang Chaolin said that it was fortunate that he paid in cash, so he slowly won trust.
In March 2005, Fengning issued seven regulations on strengthening the protection and management of paleontological fossils, and authorized the county fossil association to take the lead in protecting fossil resources.
The Fossil Society was founded in 2004, with Liu Bozhou as its president and Wang Chaolin as its secretary-general. They have repeatedly joined hands with the public security department to block fossil dealers and recover fossils from hotels in county towns and fossil production areas, and even on shuttle buses that have left the county.
This measure not only cracked down on foreign traffickers, but also had a deterrent effect among the people who dug and mined indiscriminately, thus stopping the outflow of fossils in large quantities.
"At first it was just a hobby, but through later understanding and learning, we have gradually changed from a hobby and collection at the beginning to a protection." Liu Bozhou said.
In 2008, when Wang Chaolin was engaged in fossil collection for ten years, Fengning's fossil resources protection finally took an important step. In April of that year, the provincial government approved the establishment of the Fengning Paleontological Fossil Provincial Nature Reserve.
On October 23, 2009, the first non-state-owned museum approved by our province, the Fengning Paleontological Fossil Museum, was officially opened.
Since the nature reserve does not have a special management body, the staff hired by the museum also assume the responsibility of substantive protection of the fossil resources in the reserve.
In this regard, a number of paleontologists said in interviews that when the fossil resources of many places in China were devastatingly excavated, the fossil resources of Fengning were protected to the greatest extent, thanks to the fact that there are so many people in the local area!
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Join hands with scientific research institutions to explore the ancient magic
On October 14, on a hillside in Fengning Mustard Valley, Zhang Fucheng, a well-known paleontologist and professor at Linyi University, and colleagues were leading professionals to carry out fossil excavations.
The rock profile behind them is like a thick history book, and every page opened will make people have new discoveries.
The excavation, approved by the Ministry of Natural Resources, was carried out in the wake of a new discovery– a dinosaur fossil buried here.
In October 2017, the staff of the Fengning Paleontological Fossil Museum inspected the site and found some naked dinosaur fossils. This part of the fossil is currently being protected to landfill.
Photos in Wang Chaolin's mobile phone show that the exposed parts of the dinosaur fossil include shoulder blades, ribs and other parts, and the structure is intact. Experts speculate that the dinosaurs will be more than 7 meters long. The discovery of such a large dinosaur is the first time in Fengning.
The red bones that appear on the snow-white surrounding rock have a greater significance in the eyes of experts. After field investigations by a number of paleontologists, it is believed that this dinosaur is located in the strata of 130 million years ago, and it is suspected that it is a new genus of new species, which may fill the broken chain in the evolutionary development of dinosaurs.
In the past few days, after the media have been reported by the media, it has aroused great concern from all walks of life. In fact, the Fengning Paleontological Fossil Museum has caused a sensation in the world as early as 10 years ago.
On March 20, 2005, Ji Qiang, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, and his research team announced to the world that they had discovered the world's most primitive bird fossil and named it "Huamei Dollar Phoenix".
Today, one of the fossils, as the treasure of the town museum, is on display in the Fengning Paleontological Fossil Museum. In a dark gray-black thin layer of tuff sandy mudstone, the creature with its long tail is very complete.
It is about 50 centimeters long from head to tail and is covered with clear feather marks. The lateral contours of the skull are triangular , the snout is short , and 18 smooth teeth develop in each of the upper and lower jaws. There are 12 cervical, 11 dorsal and 23 caudal vertebrae preserved, of which the tail is about 27 cm long. The most amazing thing is that it still has 12 eggs in its body.
Although subsequent studies have further confirmed that the Huamei phoenix is actually one of the dinosaurs, the "Wounded Toothed Dragon", the fossil is still of great value, providing the first evidence that the Wounded Tooth Dinosaur had feathers, and becoming the most primitive first bird creature found in the world so far.
The fossil of the Huamei phoenix was discovered in July 2004. After the fossils were unearthed, Wang Chaolin searched through the information at hand and did not find this corresponding species. He vaguely felt that this should be a good thing. Therefore, he immediately contacted Ji Qiang and, together with Liu Bozhou, sent the fossil to Ji Qiang's office.
At that time, the Internet was not yet widespread, and the information about fossils could only be visited and visited everywhere. Natural museums and geological museums in Beijing and other places, as long as there are fossils, they all want to find, bring water and dry food, and go in for a day.
Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences... As soon as they heard that there were experts who studied fossils, they came to visit.
After experiencing such a process, the paleontological fossils in their eyes are no longer the original simple collections and ornaments, but the physical evidence of the development and evolution of ancient organisms, the continuous evolution of ancient geography and climate, and are conducive to judging the future trend of biological development and geological change.
They received a warm reception from experts, not only received relevant information from experts, but also became friends with many experts.
When the Fengning Paleontological Fossil Museum opened in 2009, Zhou Zhonghe, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, personally went to unveil the plaque and identified the museum as the scientific research workstation of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
After the advent of the Huamei phoenix, it attracted the attention of experts from all over the world. At the 2006 World Paleontology Congress, Fengning was selected as a sub-venue. At that time, the president of the International Paleontological Association, Erdelliki, led more than 30 paleontologists from 27 countries to visit and investigate.
At the excavation site on October 14, Maria, a scholar at the University of CORK in Ireland, also came to the scene with a team, they were busy taking samples from each rock formation, and then taking it to the laboratory for analysis in the field of geochemistry.
3
Plan the geopark and sound the new business card of the region
Located on the first floor of the office building of the county's Cultural Bureau, the Fengning Paleontological Fossil Museum is less than 300 square meters in area and is divided into five exhibition areas: paleontology, ancient fish, ancient mammals and reptiles, ancient birds and ancient insects.
Wang Chaolin took out less than 1/30 of his entire collection and filled it up. Due to the narrow space, a horizontally angled, 2-meter-square iron tree fossil is blocked in front of another vertically viewed iron tree.
"It's like a grocery store!" While visitors marveled at the exquisiteness of the exhibits, Wang Chaolin was not satisfied with the status quo of the museum.
He said that the current museum was an exhibition set up in 2008, and now that ten years have passed, the collection is increasing and cannot be opened at all. And with the deepening of research, there will be more fine products, and enough space is needed to display.
Compared with the Liaoxi, which also belongs to the Rehe biota, the fossils of Fengning are more exquisite, although the number of endowments is small, the surrounding rock is delicate, the stone is hard, and the fossil preservation integrity is high. Many of these insects have very clear wing veins and bird hairs, while many of the fossils in other places can only see a silhouette.
Wang Chaolin wanted a larger space where these ancient beings could show their exquisite side frozen in stone. He knows that the value of fossil trading can only be realized once, and the display of fossils can make the value realization repeat continuously.
At present, the museum is open to the public free of charge, with 30,000 or 40,000 visitors per year, and it also carries out science education activities for institutions, schools and all sectors of society from time to time, and thus becomes the provincial science popularization education base.
After more than 20 years of collecting and protecting fossil resources, Wang Chaolin sighed: "If there is no attention from the government departments, it is really difficult to sustain it with my personal strength alone!" ”
In the past two years, Feng Ning's measures for fossil protection have made Wang Chaolin see hope.
After continuous appeal, chengde city has raised the protection and rational use of fengning fossil resources to a new height, and plans to build it into a new tourism business card for the city and even Hebei.
In November 2017, a new version of the "Fengning Paleontological Fossil Conservation Area Construction and Development Plan" was introduced. Wang Chaolin's dream of building a large museum is gradually being realized.
At present, in Sichakou Township, the fossil production area, a large fossil storage room with both display functions and a protective shed that displays the section of the fossil layer have begun construction, with a total construction area of 7,000 square meters. In the county seat, the construction of a fine fossil exhibition hall has also been put on the agenda.
According to the new plan, Fengning will also invest 420 million yuan to build a paleontological fossil geopark in Sichakou Township. The geopark is a custom tourism development zone with the exhibition of paleontological fossils and academic exchanges as the main body, and the folk handicraft industry and cultural and creative industry.
"You see here, east of Asia's largest pumped storage power station, south of the Qiansongba Forest Park, north is the closest savanna to Beijing, to build, is definitely a big scenic spot!" Wang Chaolin hopes that the scenic spot will be successful as soon as possible, because it will certainly drive the people in the fossil production areas out of poverty as soon as possible, and fundamentally avoid them from embarking on the road of private mining and digging again. (Reporter Dong Lilong)
■Related
The Rehe biota in northern Hebei is expected to be fully protected
Inside the Fengning Paleontological Fossil Museum, a washbasin-sized fossil is covered with dense creatures.
On closer inspection, the larger of the individuals is a fish, the size of an adult finger; followed by a bug with a three-pronged tail end, which is slightly larger than a melon seed; and the smallest is a shellfish that needs to be carefully identified to see clearly.
Wang Jinling, a museum worker, introduced that these three creatures are representatives of the Rehe biota. The fish, the wolffin, is a primitive eukeletal fish, subdivided into many species, and is endemic to East Asia in the late Mesozoic; the bifurcated insect, called the three-tailed ephemeral ephemeral, is actually a juvenile insect of this aquatic insect; and the shellfish is an oriental leaf limb.
In 1928, the American paleontologist Greep, who taught at Peking University, named the fossil fauna represented by these three animals as the Rehe Fauna. These animals lived between about 125 million and 145 million years ago. Later, more and more animals and plants were found in this formation, and in 1962, China's paleontologist Gu Zhiwei referred to the fossil group represented by the above three animals as the Rehe biota.
Fossils of the Rehe biota are widely distributed. Professor Zhang Fucheng of Linyi University introduced that its scope extends east to Korea and Japan, south to Zhejiang, and north to Siberia, but the main production area is still in the northern Hebei and western Liaoning regions within the original Rehe Province.
According to the data, the Rehe biota has preserved a large number of exquisite fossils, including more than 20 important biological phyla: clamless, cartilaginous fish, teleost fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals and other vertebrate taxa, as well as invertebrate gastropods, bivalves, leaf limbs, mesembites, mesozoans, shrimps, insects and spiders, as well as rotifers, various terrestrial plants (including angiosperms) and so on.
The well-known fossil species of the Rehe biota unearthed in Fengning include the long-finned swallow sturgeon, the Ashi swallow beast, the Diffuse Archaeopteryx, and the Fengning original feather bird. Among them, the Ayanaceae, discovered by the Sino-AMERICAN research team in March 2007, is the first Mesozoic mammal found in Hebei. It is 15 cm long, weighs about 30 grams, and lived 125 million years ago.
Its uniqueness lies in the fact that the middle ear bone is connected to the jaw bone through ossified Mychonite cartilage, which experts say provides the first fossil evidence of intermediate links for the mammalian ear evolution model proposed by the academic community.
Fossils of the Rehe biota are not only distributed in Fengning, but also in the mountain basins of northern Hebei. Statistics from the Hebei Regional Geological Survey show that fossils have been found in 16 of the 24 mountain basins in northern Chengde and northeastern Zhangjiakou.
Wang Chaolin, director of the Fengning Paleontological Fossil Museum, said that the Age of the Rehe Biota in northern Hebei is earlier than that in western Liaoning, so the number and variety are relatively small, but the fossil surrounding rock of Fengning is hard and delicate, which provides good conditions for the complete preservation of fossils.
According to Kang Zilin, a retired expert of the Provincial And Regional Adjustment Institute, more than 100 million years ago, this area was actually a lake, and in the later geological movement, the earth's crust gradually rose from south, west to north and east, during which small volcanoes continued to erupt, forming many inter-mountain fault basins, and under the burial of volcanic ash, the life of these ancient creatures was frozen in it.
He also introduced that according to the previous fossil resource survey, our province has completed the province's fossil resources protection plan in 2015, which adheres to the idea of protection first, rational development and protection first, and intends to delineate 28 key protected areas for the Rehe biota in northern Hebei. (Text/Reporter Dong Lilong)