The picture shows the origin of Chinese Aurora Horn stone on the northeast edge of the late Ordovician Gondola. Courtesy of Nangu Institute
Nanjing, July 29 (Yang Yanci) According to the latest news from the Nanjing Geological Paleontology Research Laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences on the 29th, researchers from the Institute and overseas teams have found Chinese Aurora horn stones for the first time in the Upper Ordovician strata outside China during a field expedition in western Thailand.
The results have been published online in Palaeoworld.
The Chinese Aurora Hornstone is an extinct cephalopod mollusk that flourished in the Late Ordovician. Since the 1920s, it has been identified as the standard fossil of the late Ordovician Kaidi early period.
For a long time, there were fossil records of the corresponding layers of The Chinese Aurora Horn stone in China, including South China, Tarim, Tibet, Western Yunnan and other places, and there were no reports outside China.
In January 2020, under the framework of the memorandum of cooperation signed by the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Maha Sarakham University in Thailand, Fang Xiang, assistant researcher of the early Paleontological Research Team of the Nanjing Institute of Paleontology, Li Chao, Li Wenjie and others, together with Professor Clive Burrett and Associate Professor Mongkol Udchachon of Maha Sarakham University in Thailand, conducted a joint field expedition in western Thailand and collected a large number of fossil specimens. Chinese Aurora Horn stone was first found in Thailand.
The picture shows the Chinese Aurora Horn Stone, produced in Si Sawat County, Kanchanaburi Province, western Thailand. Courtesy of Nangu Institute
According to the researchers, in the work of this joint field expedition, the Sino-Thai joint expedition team for the first time identified the cephalopod fossils produced in the upper part of the Tha Manao Formation as Chinese Aurora Horn Stone, and its era should be the early days of the Late Ordovician Kaidi, which is roughly the same period as the Pagoda Formation in the Yangtze Terrace in South China.
Researchers believe that the western part of Thailand is the same as the Baoshan region of western Yunnan in China, and belonged to the Yunnan Burma horse body in the Early Paleozoic Era, located in the low latitudes around the gondwana rim. The chinese Aurora Horn stone confirmed this time is the first record in Thailand and the first to be reported outside of China.
This discovery not only provides important fossil evidence for the reconstruction of paleoclaves in the northeastern edge of Gondwana in the Paleozoic Era, but also further confirms geological events such as the drift of the Yunnan Burmese Horse body and the migration of biogeographic fauna from the Middle Ordovician to the Late Ordovician.
This study was jointly funded by the Strategic Pilot Science and Technology Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Category B), the Second Comprehensive Scientific Expedition to the Tibetan Plateau, the Basic Project of the State Key Laboratory of Modern Paleontology and Stratigraphy, the Geological Survey Project, and the Maha Sarakham University in Thailand. (End)
Source: China News Network