Chengjiang Faunal Paleobios National Geopark, Yunnan

This geopark is located in the Maotian Mountain area in Chengjiang County, Yunnan Province. It became a national geopark in 2001. The main attraction of the geopark is the ‘Chengjiang Animal Fossils’. It preserves more than 40 different types and more than 100 species of animals from the Early Cambrian (530 million years ago), including sponges, coelenterates, molluscs and arthropods. Due to the unique burial conditions, very rare and exquisite fossils of biological materials and soft deposits have been preserved. This is an excellent site for studying the Cambrian Explosion and the physiological structure, living habits, and system evolution of animals during this period. The ecological environment provides abundant physical information. These fossils, along with the Australian Ediacaran fossils (580 million years old) and Canada’s Burgess Shale fossils (508 million years ago), are listed as the three major examples of early biological evolution in Earth’s history and have been...