Chengjiang Fossil included in World Heritage List

Chengjiang Fossil site

China’s Chengjiang Fossil site has been approved to join the World Heritage List at the 36th World Heritage Conference held in St. Petersburg, Russia on July 2.

This is China’s first fossil site to be included. So far, 43 Chinese sites have been recorded on the list. Discovered in 1984, the site contains the remains of 200 species of marine creatures up to 530 million years old.

That makes it one of the most striking discoveries of ancient life in the 20th century. The fossil site is considered to be the best window to date into the marine life and ecological systems of the Cambrian period.