China features three landmarks into world geological heritage list
The newly selected sites are the Middle Jurassic dinosaur fossil site in Yunyang, southwest China's Chongqing Municipality; the Xianshuihe Fault in southwest China's Sichuan Province; and the Triassic Dabie ultrahigh-pressure metamorphic belt in east China's Anhui Province.
The Yunyang site has a recent Middle Jurassic dinosaur discovery with 19 families, 12 orders, and 6 classes, filling an important gap in dinosaur evolution, the IUGS said. It added that this site, spanning the entire Middle Jurassic, has yielded fossils of 11 dinosaur species and includes the world's largest in-situ Jurassic fossil wall.
The Xianshuihe fault, on the eastern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, is among the world's most active intracontinental faults and offers an exceptional, easily accessible, natural laboratory for studying active continental deformation, fault processes, and seismic hazards, it said.
The Dabie Mountains site is the Earth's largest, most extensive and well-preserved ultrahigh-pressure metamorphic belt. The region is a unique natural laboratory for studying subduction, exhumation, and deep fluid-rock interactions, providing key evidence for advancing plate-tectonic theory, according to the IUGS.
Zhang Jianping, vice chair of the IUGS International Commission on Geoheritage and a professor at China University of Geosciences (Beijing), said geological heritage sites are locations of international significance that preserve key geological features or processes.
They can serve as global reference standards or hold exceptional importance in the history of geoscience, reflecting the highest international scientific value and research standards, as well as effective protection, he added.
The list has been announced in batches since 2022. China had seven sites selected in the first batch and three in the second. With the latest additions, it has 13 sites and is among the countries with the largest number of listed geological heritage sites.
Earlier, Qazinform News Agency reported China had launched the 29th group of satellites for its low-Earth-orbit satellite internet constellation from the Hainan commercial space launch site in Wenchang, south China's Hainan Province.
