THREE geological sites in China, comprising vegetation fossils, dinosaur fossils and a karst landform, have recently been listed as Geological Heritage Sites by the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS).

These newly selected sites include the Permian vegetation of the Wuda Fossil Site in North China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the Dashanpu Middle Jurassic Dinosaur Fossils Site in Southwest China’s Sichuan Province and the Guilin Karst in South China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, according to Zhang Jianping, vice-chair of the IUGS International Commission on Geoheritage and a professor at the China University of Geosciences, Beijing, at a press conference held by the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGPAS) on Tuesday.

So far, a total of 10 Chinese geological sites have been included in the list of the IUGS Geological Heritage Sites.

Geological heritages are a precious and non-renewable resource that faithfully records the 4.6 billion years of evolution history of the Earth and bases for geologists to conduct scientific research.

The IUGS Geological Heritage Sites are key places with the highest scientific relevance in the world, used as a global reference, and with a substantial contribution to the development of geological sciences through history, according to the IUGS.

The three newly selected sites are outstanding representatives of China’s geological relics and they have been internationally recognized for their scientific value, research significance and current protection status, Zhang said.

The Wuda Permian vegetation fossil site, dubbed the “Vegetational Pompeii,” features a peat-forming tropical rainforest preserved in remarkable detail by volcanic ash. This ancient forest, dating back approximately 298 million years, was buried by ash-fall and now appears as a tuff bed between two coal seams in the Wuda coalfield.

At the Dashanpu Middle Jurassic Dinosaur Fossils Site in Zigong City, Sichuan Province, over 200 specimens of dinosaurs and other vertebrates have been uncovered. These include 29 species across 26 genera, such as sauropods, theropods, basal neornithischians, stegosaurs, as well as fish, amphibians, turtles, crocodiles, pterosaurs and therapsids.

The Guilin Karst features beautiful continental tower and cone karst formations around the Lijiang River and its tributaries, as well as many caves. Shaped by Paleozoic tectonic movements, the Guilin Karst has created a unique basin that is ideal for karst development, said Chen Weihai, deputy chief engineer of the Institute of Karst Geology of the China Geological Survey.(Xinhua)