ASIA / PACIFIC CHENGJIANG FOSSIL SITE CHINA China – Chengjiang Fossil Site WORLD HERITAGE NOMINATION – IUCN TECHNICAL EVALUATION CHENGJIANG FOSSIL SITE (People’s Republic of China) – ID No. 1388 IUCN RECOMMENDATION TO WORLD HERITAGE COMMITTEE: To inscribe the property under natural criteria Key paragraphs of Operational Guidelines: 77 Property meet natural criteria 78 Property meets conditions of integrity and protection and management requirements 1. DOCUMENTATION e) Field Visit: Professor Patrick J. Mc Keever and Professor Mohd Shafeea Leman, 23-25 September 2011 a) Date nomination received by IUCN: 11 March 2011 f) Date of IUCN approval of this report: April 2012 b) Additional information officially requested from and provided by the State Party: Following the technical evaluation mission the State Party was 2. SUMMARY OF NATURAL VALUES requested to provide supplementary information on 12 October 2011. The information was received in Chengjiang Fossil Site (referred to as CFS hereafter) is November 2011. Subsequent to the IUCN World a relatively small hilly area located in the eastern part of Heritage Panel meeting, further supplementary Chengjiang County of Yuxi City in south China’s Yunnan information was requested on 5 December 2011 and the Province. It is roughly oblong in shape with its western information was received in January 2012. boundary about 5 km east of Chengjiang Town, while its southern boundary is only about 4 km northeast of c) Additional Literature Consulted: Dingwall, P., Fuxian Lake shoreline. CFS is bordered by Luxishao Weighell T. & Badman, T. (2005) Geological World Village in the west, Xiaolantian Village in the north, Heritage: A Global Framework. IUCN / WCPA; Fortey, Ganhaizi, Longtang and Dongxishao Villages in the east, R. (2001) Science's Compass - Perspectives - and Xincun Village in the south. Loulishan Village is the Evolution: The Cambrian Explosion Exploded? only village included in the CFS buffer zone and is Science. 293 (5529): 438; Hou, X. (2004). The located in the southeast. CFS comprises a total area of Cambrian fossils of Chengjiang, China: The c.512 ha, and is surrounded by a buffer zone of c.220 ha flowering of early animal life; Malden, MA: Blackwell. that does not form part of the nominated property. Levinton, Jeffrey S. (2008). The Cambrian Explosion: How Do We Use the Evidence? BioScience. 58 (9): CFS is mostly newly reforested land with some native 855; Lin, Jih-Pai. (2007) From a fossil assemblage to a and introduced tree species. The buffer zone area is paleoecological community time, organisms and mostly agricultural land, including, to the southeast of environment based on the Kaili Lagerstatte CFS, the traditional Loulishan Village, situated in gently (Cambrian), South China and coeval deposits of rolling agricultural land. exceptional preservation. Ohio State University, 2007; Monge-Nájera J , and X Hou. (2000) Disparity, Tectonically, the CFS falls into the eastern part of decimation and the Cambrian "explosion": Kunming Platform fold belt and has undergone several comparison of early Cambrian and present faunal tectonic episodes including Caledonian and Hercynian communities with emphasis on velvet worms (543 Ma to 250 Ma) movements; the Mesozoic (250 Ma (Onychophora). Revista De Biología Tropical . 48 (2-3); to 65 Ma) uplift; the Himalayan (about 50 Ma) mountain Wells, R.T. (1996) Earth’s Geological History: A building; and the Xiaojiang (3 Ma to 4 Ma) faulting. The Contextual Framework for Assessment of World nominated site as a whole is underlain by an asymmetric Heritage Fossil Site Nominations. IUCN Report; syncline which has an axial trend of 30° E and the Zhang, Xi-guang, Jan Bergstrom, Richard G. Bromley, eastern limb of which is the steeper. and Xian-guang Hou (2007) Diminutive trace fossils in the Chengjiang Lagerstatte. Terra Nova. 19 (6): 407- The western limb of the syncline exposes a continuous 412 succession representing the lower part of Lower Cambrian as well as part of the underlying Pre-Cambrian d) Consultations: Fourteen external reviewers strata. The stratigraphy (from oldest to youngest) of the consulted. The mission also met with national and local nominated site can be summarized as follows: officials, representatives of site managers and Yunnan University, local communities and scientists associated i) Yuhucun Formation [age: Late Sinian] with the property. This is the oldest sequence within the CFS nominated site that consists of four members (from top to bottom): IUCN Evaluation Report – May 2012 17 China – Chengjiang Fossil Site the Dahai Member with dark grey and bluish-grey Kuanyangia and Kunmingella, and brachiopods phosphorite and phosphoric dolomite; the Xiaowaitou Lingulella and Lingulepis remain. Member with greyish-yellow microbedded dolomite and brown silicolite, plus grey dolomite with black ii) Yellowish green shale interbedded with thin to silicolitic fragments and black silicolite; the Baiyanshao medium (10-20 cm) siltstones and sandstones (40-50 Member with grey, brownish-grey and muddy m) represent the main beds yielding soft-bodied dolomites; and the Jiucheng Member consisting of fossils, especially in its lower and middle parts. This grey-green medium to thick bedded dolomite. interval has extremely diverse arthropods such as Naraoia, Leanchoilia, Isoxys, Kunmingella, Eoredlichia ii) Heilinpu Formation [age: Early Cambrian] and Yunnanocephalus, lobopodians, eldoniids, worms Disconformably overlying the Yuhucun Formation; and sponges. consists of two members (from top to bottom) the Yu’anshan Member and the Shiyantou Member. The iii) Black siltstone and shale. This interval yields mainly Yu’anshan Member with a thickness of 200m is mainly trilobites such as Tsunyidiscus and Wutingaspis and made up of yellowish- and greenish-grey shale and bradoriids Hanchungella and Emeillopsis belonging to thin mudstone interbedded with thin to medium beds of the Parabadiella Biozone, and lacks key soft-bodied silty dolomite and calcareous siltstone. Repeated beds Chengjiang Fauna. The fauna lies between the of fine quartz sandstone occur at 2-4m intervals in the Meishucun fauna and Chengjiang fauna. upper parts. The base is made up of thinly bedded yellowish grey silty mudstone containing spherical iv) Black siltstone. This horizon contains the oldest calcite-dolomite nodules and phosphatic silty dolomite. trilobites in China such as Parabadiella, together with The Shiyantou Member is approximately 80m thick the bradoriids Hanchiangella, Liangshanella, and is mainly made up of dark grey, thin to medium Nanchengella, amongst others. bedded argillaceous siltstone with light grey, banded, micaceous dolomitic siltstone, grey-black thin to very IUCN requested clarification from the State Party thin bedded silty mudstone. regarding the fossil fauna within the area that is nominated, rather than the wider region. Supplementary iii) Canglangpu Formation [age: Early Cambrian] information supplied by the State Party indicates that the This member conformably overlies the Heilinpu nominated property has a total of 152 documented Formation and has a thickness of approximately 150m species, or 44 less than documented in the original with the upper part being eroded. It is mainly made up nomination file. These species are found in the region of thin to medium bedded purple-red, grey micaceous but outside the property, and are not at present fine quartz sandstone and grey-green thinly bedded proposed for inscription; however they do provide silty mudstone. important context for the property. It is also noted that the strata which has produced those species (lower part CFS provides direct evidence for the roots of animal of the Yu’anshan Member) is present within the biodiversity, it presents the most complete record of an nominated property boundaries; however collecting has early Cambrian marine community, it contains a prolific not been undertaken in this part of the site. and exceptionally preserved biota, displaying the anatomy of hard and soft tissues in a very wide variety of organisms, invertebrate and vertebrate, in exquisite 3. COMPARISONS WITH OTHER AREAS detail; its fossils bear upon fundamental questions regarding the design of animal body parts and the It is very rare to find fossils of soft-bodied organisms in genetic generation of evolutionary novelty, it records the the fossil record let alone find them in such abundance early establishment of a complex marine ecosystem, at such a key point in the evolutionary development of with food webs called by sophisticated predators. life on Earth. Among non-hominid palaeontological sites on the World Heritage List, several sites such as the The fossils of the Chengjiang fauna occur in the Messel Pit in Germany and the Monte San Girogio yellowish-weathering grey mudstone and shale from the transnational site between Italy and Switzerland also upper part of the Yu’anshan Member of Heilinpu include soft-bodied preservation from different parts of (Qiongzhusi) Formation. Radiometric dating from the the geological record. The Burgess Shale locality in lowest beds containing the Chengjiang Fauna gives a Canada, part of the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks date of 530 Ma, and the fauna is estimated to be from a World Heritage Site (and initially inscribed on the World geological interval of 2-3 Ma duration. Heritage List as a fossil site in 1980), is strongly comparable to the CFS and a specific comparison is The upper part of the Yu’anshan Member can be divided provided in the nomination document.