Tianfusha Palace

Tianfusha Palace

This is the most unique natural landscape in Lanzhou city. It is located in Longfeng gorge to the east of Renshou, Taohua garden, Anning District. It is a red sandstone about 25 million years ago. After long-term weathering and water erosion, it forms a group of similar Danxia landform wonders. It's named after the palace of sand palace, which is carved by a magic axe.

Drive to the foot of Renshou mountain, leave the highway northbound for 1.5 km, and then reach Longfeng gorge. This is a winding and flat sand gully. Four to five kilometers along the gully, there are charming Danxia landforms on both sides. It's like a complex of buildings with rigorous structure, magnificent shape, exquisite architecture and harmonious layout. Although it has no work, it's like a human being.

As early as October 11, 1891 A.D., the geographer Tao Baolian inspected this place and recorded this peculiar landscape in Xinmao Shixing Ji. Huang Keguang, Professor of Geography Department of Northwest Normal University, is called "Danxia like landform" according to its stratigraphic structure and morphological characteristics.

Introduction to scenic spots

As early as October 11, 1891, the geographer Tao Baolian inspected the area

After that, there was an earlier record of this peculiar landscape in Xinmao Shixing Ji. Huang Keguang, Professor of Geography Department of Northwest Normal University, is called "Danxia like landform" according to its stratigraphic structure and morphological characteristics. Danxia landform refers to various surface forms with steep sections composed of red clastic rocks. It was named by Chen Guoda after studying Danxia Mountain in Renhua county, Guangdong Province in 1939.

This is the most unique natural landscape in Lanzhou city. It is located in Longfeng gorge to the east of Renshou, Taohua garden, Anning District. It is a red sandstone about 25 million years ago. After long-term weathering and water erosion, it forms a group of similar Danxia landform wonders. It's named after the palace of sand palace, which is carved by a magic axe.

Drive to the foot of Renshou mountain, leave the highway northbound for 1.5 km, and then reach Longfeng gorge. This is a winding and flat sand gully. Four to five kilometers along the gully, there are charming Danxia landforms on both sides. It's like a complex of buildings with rigorous structure, magnificent shape, exquisite architecture and harmonious layout. Although it has no work, it's like a human being.

As early as October 11, 1891 A.D., the geographer Tao Baolian inspected this place and recorded this peculiar landscape in Xinmao Shixing Ji. Huang Keguang, Professor of Geography Department of Northwest Normal University, is called "Danxia like landform" according to its stratigraphic structure and morphological characteristics.

History of scenic spots

In the dragon and Phoenix gorge on the east side of Renshou, Anning District, Lanzhou City, there is a fairy tale world. It is a group of natural wonders - "tianfusha Palace", which is formed by weathering and water erosion of red rock about 25 million years ago.

On October 11, 1891, a geographer Tao Baolian passed by Shagou in Lanzhou. He wrote in Xinmao Shi Xing Ji: "turn north, three li, north of Anning fort. Wuli, Shagou. Two or three feet wide, with mountains on both sides and flat roads. Three miles, the road is slightly wide, there are rock protrusion, the lower part of the circle, such as the tower. The earth and stone are red and yellow. " This is an early record of the landscape of tianfusha palace.

Modern geologists also carried out geological investigation here, the first of which were the famous geologists Yang Zhongjian and Bian meinian. They came here in the autumn of 1935. In the book Cenozoic geology of Yongdeng area in Gaolan, central Gansu Province (published in the Journal of the Geological Society of China, Vol. 16, 1937 in English), they made a stratigraphic description of the strata here, named the uppermost orange sandstone layer as "Anning system", and had a sketch map.

Except for this sketch, the geomorphology and its causes are not described. Later, geologist Chen Mengxiong (1943-1944) and others also came here.

After liberation, among the foreign scholars, B.H. pavlinov, a geologist of the Soviet Union, also made an investigation. The genesis of the strata can be seen in the lecture notes on Quaternary Geology (1953) of Beijing Institute of geology. In the spring of 1980, British geomorphologist E. Debisille has also been here and observed the stratigraphy here. Our country's geologists come here in an endless stream.

For a long time, the origin and geological age of the so-called "Anning system" strata have been a controversial issue for scholars at home and abroad. There are even different views on the cause of formation. Therefore, "tianfushagong" landform is a famous place in Lanzhou geosciences. It is also a field practice site of Geology and geomorphology teaching in the Department of geography of Northwest Normal University. Through the research of the teachers in the Department of geography of Northwest Normal University, it is considered that the so-called "Anning system" strata should belong to the hydrogenic inland lake sediments.

Scenic spot formation

The strata here mainly include five parts: the basement is dark crystalline schist of Gaolan group with very old geological age (600 million years ago); on it is thick red glutenite with loose cementation; on the top is gray conglomerate with hard cementation, which is about two meters thick; on the top is the so-called "Anning system", which is a set of orange red sandstone with loose cementation; on the top is loess formation area The strata of the landscape are four sets of strata above the basement, and the three strata in the middle are basically horizontal.

The geological age of the formation of the lower three layers in the four sets of strata has not yet been determined academically. It is generally believed that the thick sandy conglomerate in the lower part was quiet in Miocene period more than ten thousand years ago, and the thin conglomerate on it was formed more recently, about one million years ago in Zhoukoudian period; the orange sandstone under the loess was deposited at the end of Zhoukoudian period; the loess is the latest product.

According to the geological research, after the formation of the thick red glutenite in the lower part, the bottom layer was scoured and leveled in a large area of shallow water after a long erosion period, and the gravel transported from nearby was deposited in the shallow water. After the deposition of conglomerates, Dashagou, caojiawan and zhujiajing areas in this area subsided into a large inland lake, and the thin conglomerates became the original lake bottom. Several inland rivers flow into the lake from different directions. It also carried a large amount of quartz sand which had been transported by strong wind and deposited in the estuary of the river and near the lakeside. During this period, the climate here was the alternation of drought and wetness. The river water was very seasonal, and the flow was large and small, and sometimes the river and lake dried up. The lake area was also large and small. Because of the strong wind in this area, the waves in the lake were also large and small. The stratum deposited under this special paleogeographic condition is the orange sandstone under the loess. After the deposition of this layer of sandstone, the whole area rose to land and was covered by silt blown by strong wind, forming loess widely seen in the central and eastern parts of Gansu Province.

The gullies here, including Longfeng gorge, were tributaries of the ancient Yellow River which were washed away by floods after or at the same time with the loess deposition. The special landform of "tianfusha Palace" is formed by the erosion, erosion, leaching and blowing of water, rain and sand on the original topography of this ancient gully.

Loess and its loose orange sandstone have strong permeability to rainwater. During precipitation, rainwater will directly penetrate through the two sets of strata. However, when the infiltrated water reaches the top surface of the conglomerate with hard cementation and poor permeability, it can not continue to infiltrate. It can only flow along the low-lying part of the gravel layer. When it flows to the gully which is washed away by flood, it will vertically down the gully wall, leach downward, and add water Because of the loose cemented thick glutenite on the wall of the trench, it is easy to leach and scour a thick glutenite into a vertical trench, while the part not eroded and scoured forms a protruding stone column. The rock properties of this layer of glutenite are uneven, some are hard, some are soft, and the whole set of rock strata is close to horizontal, so the surface of vertical groove is not flat, some protrude outward, some concave inward, which makes this set of rock strata look like a multi-storey pavilion with large stone columns on the outside. On the other hand, because of its hardness, the thin conglomerate layer is not easy to be eroded by water and protrudes out of the stone pillars, forming the eaves of the pavilion. The orange Sandstone on the conglomerate is easy to be washed by rain, and the surrounding slope forms, which becomes the roof of this pavilion group.

This kind of landform and its cause of formation are called Danxia Landform in geomorphology

The formation of geomorphic landscape here, in addition to the above water, precipitation, but also the role of wind.

Lanzhou has been windy and sandy since ancient times. Caojiawan and zhujiajing at the north end of Longfeng gorge are the northward wind outlets, which are the places where the wind blown sand from Mongolia must pass. Because of the loose sand layer, the wind blown sand is easy to pick up on the spot. This kind of wind blown sand is also an important geological force. The strata on the two walls of Yangou are eroded by wind sand for a long time, forming various landforms such as wind erosion column, wind erosion tower and wind erosion mushroom in caojiawan gully. The sand layer above and below the conglomerate layer is easy to be polished and eroded by wind sand, while the conglomerate layer is resistant to weathering and not easy to be eroded.

Therefore, the majestic landscape of Danxia style is the result of the comprehensive action of water, rain and sand.

Scenic spot landscape

Queen's Palace

"Tianfusha Palace" - a unique landscape, like a complex of buildings with rigorous structure, magnificent shape, exquisite architecture and unified layout. There are tall buildings in the complex

Chinese PinYin : Tian Fu Sha Gong