Trip To Qijiang 3: Fossil Trees & Future Qijiang Museum of Natural History

The day after the Fun Happy Path of Doom and the tracksite was much more sedate. In the morning, Mr. Wang took me to see a fossil wood site on the edge of town; then we went to his office to see a few dinosaur bones and other fossils that were excavated nearby. These are all undescribed, so I did not upload photos of them here pending their publication (and I hope to be involved in the dinosaur ones!). In the afternoon, we went to see the spot where the bones and other fossils came from, and then to see the future Qijiang Museum of Natural History, which is currently under construction and should be wonderful when completed!

The fossil wood site is actually in the backyard of a farmer living on the edge of town. I don't know if there are plans to develop this into a <i>bona fide</i> tourist attraction -- it, like the tracksite, is advertised in their tourism brochure, but you can't get into it without the farmer opening it up, so... This wood is much, much older than the tracks -- it's in the Late Jurassic-age Shaximiao Formation. This formation, next door in Sichuan Province, is famous for producing some spectacular dinosaurs, including the absurdly long-necked sauropods <i>Mamenchisaurus</i> and <i>Omeisaurus</i>, the big theropod <i>Yangchuanosaurus</i>, and the spiky stegosaur <i>Tuojiangosaurus</i>. If some of those names seem familiar, it's because we saw mounts of many of these at the IVPP and Beijing Museum of Natural History!

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The fossil wood site is actually in the backyard of a farmer living on the edge of town. I don't know if there are plans to develop this into a bona fide tourist attraction -- it, like the tracksite, is advertised in their tourism brochure, but you can't get into it without the farmer opening it up, so... This wood is much, much older than the tracks -- it's in the Late Jurassic-age Shaximiao Formation. This formation, next door in Sichuan Province, is famous for producing some spectacular dinosaurs, including the absurdly long-necked sauropods Mamenchisaurus and Omeisaurus, the big theropod Yangchuanosaurus, and the spiky stegosaur Tuojiangosaurus. If some of those names seem familiar, it's because we saw mounts of many of these at the IVPP and Beijing Museum of Natural History!

fossil wood tree log Shaximiao Formation