"Chaoyang" is a name that is easily misunderstood. When most people hear this name for the first time, they will associate it with Beijing. Even when I posted the travel content about Chaoyang in my circle of friends, my friends left messages asking me if I had gone to Chaoyang District of Beijing for business.
[wry smile]
Chaoyang, a small city with a total area of only 20 thousand square kilometers, is located at the junction of Mongolia, Liaoning and Hebei provinces. I didn't know until I came here that 665,438+062 ancient relics, sites and tombs had been discovered here.
6 162, what is this concept? There is a saying: "Tianjin in one hundred years, Beijing in one thousand years, Xi in three thousand years, Chaoyang in five thousand years", which is really no exaggeration!
In the 1990s, it was in Chaoyang that the oldest seed plant "Liaoning Guguo" and the oldest feathered animal "loong Bird" were discovered. They are the ancestors of flowers and birds.
This is a discovery that shocked the whole world.
Not only that, Chaoyang also unearthed a large number of various fossils. There are many kinds of fossils here in Chaoyang, really many. Bird fossils, fish fossils, dinosaur fossils, insect fossils, and several other fossils ... most of them came from1.500 million years ago.
1.500 million years, what is this concept? That is to say, if a person can live 100 years old, this is10.5 million life cycles.
It's amazing, amazing, shocking. I can't describe the shock brought by this number. In those "dinosaur parks" before, we could only look at the models, but in Chaoyang, it's all true, it's all true, that is to say, fossils are not rare at all in Chaoyang!
I still remember the excitement when I saw so many fossils in Chaoyang!
There is a Chaoyang Bird Fossil National Geopark in Chaoyang, Liaoning Province, where the "first flower" and "first bird" in the world are displayed.
After I went to this park, I felt extremely shocked. Chaoyang City, Liaoning Province was a well-deserved "fossil capital of the world" at that time.
Look at the harvest of Chaoyang, Liaoning:
As Chaoyang Bird Fossil National Geopark is the only in-situ fossil park in the world, we can see many "objects" here. For example, this huge "slicing" palace of geological strata is by far the largest stratigraphic section in Asia, and it is also the most intuitive and original geological section excavation site.
Hundreds of millions of years of geological evolution layers are vividly displayed in front of us, excavated in situ, preserved in situ, without a little movement, and huge signs are marked with the age, name and introduction of each layer ... Oh, my God, that layer by layer is amazing for my brother.
This is a dinosaur egg.
It's true, dear. It's not an imitation. It's a real dinosaur fossil. I've never seen it.
Archaeologists say that the fossils here are so complete and diverse because a sudden volcanic eruption "enveloped" and buried these creatures in an instant, so when we observe these fossils at close range, they are all lifelike and live in the same room with creatures over 100 million years old, which feels very dreamy.
This is very interesting. This is an animal fossil with a beautiful name "Likara", but you will never think of it. ...
Now it's Xiao Qiang ... the ancestor of the cockroach.
Well, you see, this is a very humble kind of wood, right? But it has a history of more than 100 million years. It is an ancestor of our ancestors, and it is "silicified wood".
What is silicified wood? Is a tree, buried in the ground, after a complex geological process, the formation of fossils. The wood fossils in Chaoyang Bird Fossil National Geopark basically retain the original appearance of a tree, with rings, textures, scars and tree holes. They have kept secrets hundreds of millions of years ago until now.
Let's look at the real dinosaur fossils. This is not a model. Oh, it's true. It's a real dinosaur.
From March, 65438 to March, 0973, scientists in China began to "look for dragons" all over the mountains and plains since a drilling crew found the first dinosaur fossil in Chaoyang.
In the following decades, Chaoyang area opened a "fossil treasure house", and amazing discoveries were presented to the world.
There are many dinosaur fossils here, only dinosaurs are in Chaoyang. Oh, not at all. Moreover, it is very interesting that the dinosaurs, birds, insects and all living things here, although some fly in the sky, some swim in the water and some run on the ground, are all at the same address level. Do you know why?
Archaeologists say that this is because the geological changes in Chaoyang were particularly frequent more than 100 million years ago. When the volcano erupts, some toxic substances are released. First, birds are smoked into the lake, and then volcanic ash buries them together, so they will be together forever.
Let's look at two pictures of Together.
This is a little dragon and a turtle. It can be a story, and the content of the story is up to you.
This is parrot-billed dragon, a petite and lovely dinosaur. Compared with those giant dinosaurs, they are as small and numerous as ants. People say this is a love story about a little dragon. When the volcano erupted, they hugged each other [cried]. There is a poem about them:
Forever love
A mountain can suddenly overturn.
The earth may also crack and collapse in an instant.
Across space and time
voicelessly
Solidified love totem
I used to love each other.
As intoxicated and gentle as water and wind.
Never leave or give up/never say goodbye.
Red and yellow calendar
Witness the eternity of love
They will always be together, leaving eternity in the world and love in our hearts.
The origin and evolution of angiosperms has always been an "unsolved case". Angiosperms are just plants whose fruits are covered with seeds and fruits. They are the largest species group in the plant kingdom today. What we humans eat and wear is provided by angiosperms. Before this plant appeared, there were no "flowers" in the world, and mammals were not so prosperous. So 100 years ago, Darwin found that angiosperms suddenly appeared in the Cretaceous geological layer, and he felt very confused. How did they suddenly appear?
When the "Liaoning ancient fruit" was discovered in Chaoyang, everything came out. It turns out that this is the place where the first flower blooms. Liaoning ancient fruit has been proved to be the oldest angiosperm in the world and the first "flower" on the earth. With this flower, so many insects collect pollen and witness the co-evolution of insect fossils that spread pollen.
Finally, let's see what the "first bird" looks like.
Sinosauropteryx is the largest bird fossil ever discovered on the earth, which was discovered in Chaoyang at the end of the 20th century. Although it is called "bird", it can't fly, but it can only run at full speed. Theoretically, it is actually a bird-like "dragon", but it is different from other "dragons". On its body, shallow feathers have grown and it has begun to evolve from cold blood to warm blood.
At the Shanghai World Expo, loong fish fossils 65.438+0.25 billion years ago were exhibited in Chaoyang Bird Fossil National Geopark as "treasures of the town hall".
So far, more than 3,000 pieces of bird fossils have been unearthed in Chaoyang, while all the bird fossils unearthed in other countries add up to a few, and they are all a feather or a foot bone. There is no complete skeleton, and no trace of the origin of such dense birds has been found. So it is because of the discovery of loong birds that Chaoyang is known as "the place where the first bird took off in the world".
Fossils are rare resources, so Chaoyang Bird Fossil National Geopark, located in Shangheshou Village, 7.5 kilometers outside Chaoyang City, Liaoning Province, is really a very precious treasure. In this paleontological fossil reserve with a total area of 10 128 square kilometers, the world's "most", "strangeness" and "mystery" are presented to people.
Chaoyang, where 625 kinds of paleontological fossils have been unearthed, is a "unique treasure house" in the world. The excavation of these fossils has solved many "suspense" problems about the origin and evolution of paleontology, attracted so many "root-seekers" in the fields of culture, history and archaeology to visit and travel, and biologists from dozens of countries came to investigate and study. Chaoyang has become a global place.
Even the American magazine Science said in an article: "No other place in the world can preserve so many beautiful paleontological fossils in such a continuous time and such a concentrated area."