Dinosaur ditch

Dinosaur ditch

In the north of Qitai County, Xinjiang, there is a mysterious place called Dinosaur Valley. The geological structure of red brown giant rock here is the product of Mesozoic era. This is the hometown of dinosaurs. Dinosaur ditch is about 5 km long, 60 km northeast of Huoshaoshan oil field in the hinterland of Junggar basin. It is a north-south gully, named after dinosaur fossils

Development history

In 1985, a dinosaur investigation team composed of Chinese and Canadian paleontologists excavated four dinosaur fossils here. They belong to theropods, sauropods, turtles and crocodiles, including herbivorous dinosaurs and carnivorous dinosaurs. Among them, the sauropod herbivorous dinosaur fossils were excavated. Each cervical vertebra was about 1.5 meters long and the neck elbow was 4 meters long. According to this calculation, the total length of the dinosaur is 33 meters. It is 10 meters high and weighs 60 tons, slightly inferior to the 34 meter earthquake dragon excavated in the United States.

In 1997, another dinosaur fossil was found there. It is about 6.5 meters above the surface of the earth. The largest bone is about 20 cm in diameter, but it has not been unearthed.

Since 1999, the Chinese Canadian dinosaur expedition team has spent another four years cutting off ten mountain tops with detonators and explosives, and finally excavated a dinosaur fossil named "Kalamaili dragon". Only part of its cervical spine and relatively complete skull remain. The vertebrae is 1.6 meters long, 1.2 meters high, and weighs more than 300 kg. The longest rib is 1.5 meters, which is rare in the world. It is estimated that this "kalamairus" is more than 34 meters long and more than 10 meters high, surpassing the "earthquake dragon" discovered in the United States and becoming the World Dinosaur champion.

After the discovery of kalamarilon, it was packed into hundreds of wooden cases and transported to Beijing. Some experts pointed out that there are still many dinosaur remains buried in the dinosaur ditch, and there will be more shocking major discoveries. It has become a research site for many archaeologists at home and abroad.

In 2002, China named this area as silicified wood Dinosaur National Geopark, with a total area of 492 square kilometers. It is also the only National Geopark in China named after typical, rare and precious paleontological fossils.

The mystery of dinosaur ditch

When you come to the dinosaur ditch, you can see from a distance that the red low rock is like a fire dragon crawling in the desert. It is said that if the weather is good, plus the emergence of a mirage in Shanghai, the fire dragon will take off and "fly", quite spectacular. The dinosaur trench is less than 10 kilometers long in the east-west direction. The widest part is only about 2 kilometers, and the narrowest part is less than 200 meters. It is probably the largest dinosaur fossil in the world that can be found in such a small area.

From the dinosaur species found, there are not only dinosaurs living in water more than 100 million years ago, but also dinosaurs living on land, and amphibious dinosaurs. This shows that today's extremely arid Gobi Desert should have been a large area of ocean or lake hundreds of millions of years ago, with land bordering on it. Judging from the food classification of dinosaurs, there are both carnivorous dinosaurs and herbivorous dinosaurs. It can be imagined that this was a place where life grew extremely vigorously hundreds of millions of years ago. Otherwise, so many monsters could not survive. However, why such a large number of dinosaurs died at the same time? Is there any causal relationship between them and the birth of the maroon rock? This is a puzzle.

At the foot of the mountain is a broad impact ditch formed by rainwater washing along the mountain. There are many huge fossil trees lying in the gully. According to research, they are the remains of more than 100 million years ago, and lived in the same period as the dinosaurs excavated in the dinosaur ditch. Now, through the life history of 100 million years, we can imagine that there were both vast waters and lush primeval forests, which was an excellent place for the reproduction of ancient life. However, these towering ancient trees were destroyed at some time, perhaps for the same reason. Pick up an ancient tree fossil, feel cold, hard, heavy. It has been proved that the formation of these fossil trees is due to the complex geochemical reaction after a large number of ancient trees were buried in the ground under the action of external force and soaked in groundwater rich in silicic acid for a long time. The original carbonaceous material in the tree was replaced by silicon dioxide to form this hard fossil. Therefore, this ancient tree fossil is often called "silicified wood". However, why did the dinosaurs close to the silicified wood not be silicified? Or is it the difference of species? It should be said that the dinosaurs' survival in this area at that time was dependent on the existence of primeval forest, but whether there was a certain connection between their extinction? Or was it caused by the same reason at the same time? Archaeological experts tried to make a scientific explanation, but it was difficult to find conclusive evidence According to.

Although the mountain of Dinosaur Valley is not big, it has many ravines. It is said that five pits were excavated here by the Chinese and Canadian investigation team in that year. Pit No. 1 is the largest, with a depth of 10 meters and a width of more than 10 meters. The excavation lasted for four years. The largest dinosaur in the world was unearthed here. The other four pits are smaller than No. 1 pit. No. 4 pit is located on a hillside. The huge stone was overturned to reveal gray rock. It is said that a carnivorous dinosaur fossil was found here. Just in the rock less than 5 meters away from pit 4, another dinosaur fossil is vividly presented in front of our eyes. Its forepaw, spine and strong hip bone can be clearly identified. It is about 4 meters long and 1.5 meters high. It is firmly embedded in the rock and has differentiated in the wind and sun. Here, every inch of land seems to be full of magic, because the quantity, quality and species of dinosaur fossils preserved here are astonishing to the world. It's not too much to call it "dinosaur museum" or "hometown of dinosaurs". If you step on the reddish brown hillside ditch, you will pick up the differentiated dinosaur fossil fragments. I don't know. If we look carefully, is it possible to find dinosaurs in these places?

Standing on a high mountain top, looking to the southeast, there is a boundless Gobi. According to research, this brown desert is only a few hundred years old, which is more than 100 million years different from the rock of Dinosaur Valley. Is there any connection between this special geological structure and the existence and extinction of many dinosaurs? We don't know, but from the current excavation, this endless Gobi is also full of Magic: in the autumn of 1930, under the leadership of Professor Yuan Fuli, Chinese and Swedish scientists were far away from dinosaurs Two dinosaur fossils have been found in the Bolten Gobi, 30 kilometers away from the valley, which is the first time in Asia. Later they were named "Qishan dragon". In addition, hundreds of marine and terrestrial fossils have been found in the Gobi. These fossils, like dinosaurs, have left us with ancient mysteries.

Giant fossil

On October 1, the author came to the dinosaur ditch in Qitai, Xinjiang. In the No.2 pit where dinosaur fossils were excavated by Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2006, a newly unearthed giant fossil vertebrate was placed under an awning.

Giant vertebrate fossils are firmly embedded in a huge ochre red rock, the color of which is very similar to the color of the whole dinosaur ditch.

The fossil is about 4 meters long, more than 2 meters wide and weighs about 2.5 tons. In addition to the cervical vertebrae, skull and three leg bones, other major fossil bones are basically preserved, especially the vertebrae, caudal vertebrae and ribs are very thick, and a hind leg bone is also well preserved.

Judging from the preservation of the fossil, it should be a giant before it died.

Because this fossil has not been finally identified by experts, there is no conclusion as to what animal remains it is. However, judging from previous archaeological excavations and the shape of the fossil, it is most likely a dinosaur fossil.

The dangerous fall of fossils

The distance between silicified wood garden and Dinosaur Valley is only 5 kilometers, while it is more than 150 kilometers away from Qitai County. It's deserted and the environment is extremely harsh.

He Qi is responsible for the care of the Dinosaur Valley in Qitai, and also the director of Qitai silicified wood garden.

On June 27 this year, when he Qi was patrolling 20 kilometers to the west of the silicified wood garden, he found an abnormal rut and searched all the way.

Results the giant fossil was found on the cliff of a hill. Half of the fossil has been dug up by people. There are tools left by poachers around, and there are signs of being prized on the fossil.

The guardian guards the fossil day and night

In order not to let this rare treasure fall into the hands of the thieves, He Qi and two other staff members of the silicified wood garden began to excavate the fossil. It took three people two months to excavate the fossil intermittently. Because of the lack of mining experience and professional tools, in order not to damage the fossil, they had to dig out the whole rock. On August 23, they used the "hanging gourd" to lift the fossil to the car and transport it to the No. 2 pit of dinosaur ditch.

In 2006, experts from the Chinese Academy of Sciences excavated more than 100 fossils belonging to different dinosaurs in this pit. The number of fossils excavated and the variety of dinosaurs involved have attracted worldwide attention and shock. Later, most of the fossils excavated in this pit were transported away, leaving only a small number of fossils. Unexpectedly, in the early morning of May 8 this year, the three dinosaur fossils here were stolen by lawless elements under the eyes of the caretakers. Although the police tried their best to solve the case, no result has been found so far.

Now, the fossils He Qi transported to the No. 2 pit of Dinosaur Valley are more than what experts found in this pit in 2006

Chinese PinYin : Kong Long Gou