1000 Wonders of the World!
Menu
Chengjiang Fossil Site
CC BY-SA 3.0 | Author: Dwergenpaartje | Full Size | More Pics >

Chengjiang Fossil Site

VisitedFavoriteWanted
Rank: 1001 UNESCO
Wonder Type: Natural
Country: China
Best of: Fossils
Description:
A hilly 512 ha site in Yunnan province, Chengjiang’s fossils present the most complete record of an early Cambrian marine community with exceptionally preserved biota, displaying the anatomy of hard and soft tissues in a very wide variety of organisms, invertebrate and vertebrate. They record the early establishment of a complex marine ecosystem. The site documents at least sixteen phyla and a variety of enigmatic groups as well as about 196 species, presenting exceptional testimony to the rapid diversification of life on Earth 530 million years ago, when almost all of today’s major animal groups emerged. It opens a palaeobiological window of great significance to scholarship. [More Details]
This article uses material from UNESCO World Heritage List article "Chengjiang Fossil Site", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike 3.0 IGO License.