Zigong Dinosaurs: A Century-long Transformation from Fossil Wonder to Cultural Tourism Engine

A Century of Excavation: From the First Femur to the "Dinosaur Cemetery"

 

Zigong's relationship with dinosaurs began in 1915. American geologist George D. Louderback chiseled out a 20-centimeter-diameter dinosaur femur fossil and a serrated tooth on the sandstone cliff by the Xushui River in Rong County, opening the prelude to dinosaur research in the Sichuan Basin. The real breakthrough occurred in 1979. The 17,000 square meters of fossil buried layer accidentally revealed during the construction of Dashanpu made Zigong the core of global Jurassic dinosaur research:

 

• Fossil treasure house: a total of more than 170 fossil sites have been discovered, covering 21 genera and 26 species of dinosaurs, and more than 40 complete skeletons, including rare stegosaurus skin fossils and sauropod tail club fossils in the world;

 

• Three major fossil groups: The Dashanpu site shocked the academic community with 3,000 square meters of dense fossils; the Qinglongshan fossil group is even larger than the former, and 16,000 dinosaur-era relict plants of Alsophila spinulosa are still preserved in Rong County;

 

• Filling the evolutionary gap: The Middle Jurassic fossil group fully presents the ecology of the heyday of dinosaurs, and is called "the biggest discovery in dinosaur research in the past 20 years" by the international academic community.

"We discovered the first fossil in 1915, and now dinosaurs have become the city gene of Zigong." said a museum researcher. When a 5-year-old child identifies dinosaur footprints on the rock wall, and when a farmer puts down his hoe and picks up a bowl of "dinosaur-themed meals", Zigong's century-old dinosaur legend is rushing towards the future with unprecedented vitality - this is no longer just a fossil cemetery, but also a space-time hub connecting prehistory and the future.