Scores of paleontologists from around China are gathering at
Chengjiang County in southwest China's
Yunnan
Province to study a plan on protecting the famous Chengjiang
fauna fossils and adjacent geological environment.
The plan, drawn up by prestigious Yunnan
University, was designed to deal with the contradictions
between the protection of the Chengjiang fossils and mineral
exploitation. In recent years, people in Chengjiang County and
surrounding areas have begun to open up phosphoric deposits on the
fringes of the protected zones, posing a threat to this vital
archaeological site.
The framework requires coordinated efforts in protecting the
fossils while supporting local economic growth and integrating
scientific research with protection.
Meanwhile, Yunnan University launched its paleontology
laboratory last week to further study Chengjiang, where fossil
records were discovered of the so-called Cambrian explosion, when
nearly all major animal groups that have sustained global
biodiversity until today first appeared.
The 525-million-year-old Chengjiang fossils include huge
quantities of multicellular animals, including worms, arthropods
and a specimen of the earliest vertebrate on earth.
Fossils that preserve soft-part anatomy are extremely rare and
crucial to knowledge of evolution, providing a far more complete
record of the nature of past life forms and communities than does
the normal shelly fossil.
The discovery was made in July 1984 by Hou Xianguang, a research
fellow with the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology of
the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). To
date, scientists have identified fossils of 180 species in 40
categories.
(Xinhua News Agency, China.org.cn March 1, 2005)
