National Parks of ChinaOverview
| Designation | UNESCO World Heritage (natural, 2012) |
| Name | 澄江化石遗址 |
| Country | China |
| Criteria | (viii) |
| Nearby cities | Kunming |
| Nearby sites | Stone Forest of Lunan, Dianchi Lake, Kunming, Jiuxiang, Alu Caves, Jianshui, Puzhehei |
| Latitude, longitude | 24.67, 102.98 Google Maps |
About
Chengjiang Fossil Site (澄江化石遗址) was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2012 as a natural site.
Description (UNESCO World Heritage Centre)
A hilly 512 ha site in Yunnan province, Chengjiang’s fossils present the most complete record of an early Cambrian marine community with exceptionally preserved biota, displaying the anatomy of hard and soft tissues in a very wide variety of organisms, invertebrate and vertebrate. They record the early establishment of a complex marine ecosystem. The site documents at least sixteen phyla and a variety of enigmatic groups as well as about 196 species, presenting exceptional testimony to the rapid diversification of life on Earth 530 million years ago, when almost all of today’s major animal gro