Guanling Fossil Group National Geopark 关岭化石群国家地质公园

About Guanling Fossil Group National Geopark

What is preserved at Guanling is a whole marine community, not only its vertebrates. The Anshun municipal government lists marine reptiles — ichthyosaurs, thalattosaurs and placodonts — together with crinoids, ammonites, bivalves, brachiopods, nautiloids and fishes, and with fossil land plants that grew elsewhere and were buried here. The municipal government describes the assemblage as concentrated in its burial, complete in the range of groups represented, abundant in numbers and well preserved. Xinhua, reporting palaeontologists' findings, places the marine animals of Guanling at roughly 220 to 230 million years ago and puts their living environment in seas 200 to 500 metres deep; the plateau country the county now occupies was open sea at that time.

What to look for

• The marine reptiles of the assemblage: ichthyosaurs, thalattosaurs and placodonts.
• The crinoids, which the municipal government lists alongside the reptiles as a defining element of the fossil bed.
• The invertebrates preserved with them — ammonites, bivalves, brachiopods and nautiloids — and the fishes.
• The fossil land plants, which grew on land and were preserved away from where they grew.

Location & getting there

Getting to Guanling Fossil Group National Geopark

Confirm the venue or campus, reservation channel and exhibition calendar. A museum name may cover more than one building.

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