Guiyang Biota, now in the world!

Ancient Discovery丨A 250-million-year-old fossil treasure trove has been discovered: a new world after the largest mass extinction in history

The reporter learned from China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) that the team led by Professor Song Haijun of the university discovered a unique buried fossil reservoir dating back 250.8 million years in Guiyang City and its surrounding areas in Guizhou Province, my country - the Guiyang Biota. The relevant research results were published in the journal Science on the 10th.

Song Haijun introduced that the Guiyang Biota is the oldest known Mesozoic fossil reservoir, which was only about 1 million years away from the most catastrophic mass extinction in the Earth's geological history, the Permian-Triassic mass extinction. The reviewers of the article in Science magazine believe that this discovery provides new insights into the speed and pattern of life recovery after the largest mass extinction.

Lobster fossil fragments found in the Guiyang Biota. (Photo by Dai Xu)

"The discovery of the Guiyang Biota can be traced back to a field survey in the spring of 2015," said Song Haijun, when his student Dai Xu found a very peculiar lobster fossil fragment in a piece of black shale, which attracted the team's attention. After that, Dr. Dai Xu and others led the team to carry out field work in the area every year from 2015 to 2022, and successively discovered a large number of fossils of various categories, thus revealing the tip of the iceberg of the Guiyang Biota.

In order to clarify the precise age and biological features of the Guiyang Biota, the team members carried out a lot of geological work in the area, and conducted systematic research from the aspects of paleontological taxonomy, biostratigraphy, chronostratigraphy, sedimentology, and sedimentary geochemistry. They have preliminarily sorted out the main features, stratigraphic distribution, burial age, burial environment and other information of the Guiyang Biota.

Ecological restoration map of Guiyang biota. (Drawn by Yang Dinghua)

So far, more than a dozen major categories, including bony fish, cartilaginous fish, conodonts, sponges, bivalves, ammonites, gastropods, etc., totaling 40 different species have been found in the Guiyang biota. From an ecological point of view, the trophic pyramid of the Guiyang biota is already very complete. In addition, a large number of fecal fossils have been found, indicating that the food web at that time was already relatively complex and the ecological structure was already very complete. "This further shows that the ecological reconstruction after the Permian-Triassic mass extinction was much faster than previously thought." Song Haijun said that this will help us better understand the evolutionary relationship between organisms and the environment under extreme climatic conditions.

Source: Xinhua News Agency

Reporter: Li Wei

Producer: Zhang Yue

Edited by: Li Yongxi, Qing Shan

Internship: Zeng Yuxin