Australian.Geographic_2014_01-02

190 million years old, from the Late
Triassic or Early Jurassic. This makes
the mudstones here among the oldest
dinosaur deposits in the world.
To find even single genuine fossils
on display in a museum rather than
plaster casts of them is exciting, but
when those fossils are largely complete
and there are more than 70 of them,
it’s nothing short of astounding.
Consider for a moment that on the
Australian continent as a whole, we
have found less than 20 species of
dinosaur, and the majority are known
from just a smattering of scattered
bones. Few species are known from
more than one specimen. In the
Lufeng Basin alone, more than 120
individual dinosaurs of around 40
species have been found. Ten of those
specimens are more than 90 per cent
complete; another 60 skeletons are
more than 70 per cent complete.
“This is a classical site for the
study of Chinese dinosaurs. It’s one
of the earliest sites where Chinese
palaeontologists recognised fossils
and started working on them in
the 1930s,” says Wang Tao, World
Dinosaur Valley director. “Major

Chinese palaeontologists such as

Professor C.C. Young and Professor

Dong Zhiming all worked here... This

site is well known by palaeontologists

internationally, particularly for famous

species such as Lufengosaurus.”

Another reason why the dinosaurs

at Lufeng are unique is that they

fill a gap in knowledge about Early

Jurassic dinosaurs, which are very

poorly represented in other parts of

the world. Wang says that the fact the

individual fossils are so well preserved

suggests they died in place at the site,

rather than being washed here after

death in a river or sea. “We interpret

the area as a lake with dinosaurs

drinking along the banks. When they

died they fell in and were buried by

the mud, which is why most of them

are well preserved.”

 A

LTHOUGH most people in

the West would never have

heard of them, China has a

series of dinosaur museums that are

among the world’s largest and most

impressive. The site here at Lufeng,

and another museum at Zigong in

Sichuan Province, are among very

Fossil fantastic. The display space
at the Lufeng Dinosaur Quarry is
packed with more than 70 stunning
specimens of dinosaurs, such as
Lufengosaurus and Chuanjiesaurus.

Bone bearers.

Yunnan and Sich-

uan are in China’s

south-west and

border Tibet and

Myanmar (Burma).

They are among

the provinces with

the nation’s richest

fossil deposits.

CHINA

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