A series of volcanic eruptions some 130 million years ago produced the well-preserved fossils found in Jehol Biota, a Mesozoic site in northeast China which scientists believe is the evolutionary cradle of a number of today's species.
The Feb. 20 issue of Nature featured a long article on Chinese Jehol Biota, evaluating its importance in helping to complete the evolutionary process.
The authors of the article are Zhou Zhonghe of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Paul M. Barrett of the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford, and Jason Hilton from the Department of Geology and Zoology of the National Museums of Scotland.
The exceptionally well-preserved Jehol Biota, located in Liaoning Province, provides a unique window into an early Cretaceous world, some 130 million years ago, which was populated by early birds and feathered dinosaurs.
Many of the new species emerging from this fossil site have highlighted the need for a review of the traditional theories related to the evolution of birds and the evolution of flight, said Zhou.
Since 1993, fossils of "feathered" dinosaurs such as the Sinosauropteryx, the Peipiaosaurus and the Sinornithosaurus have been discovered in west Liaoning Province, confirming the theory that birds evolved from a branch of small dinosaurs.
The site has also yielded fossils of mammals, frogs, lizards, fish, turtles and the earliest angiosperm, with over 60 species of plant fossils, about 70 kinds of vertebrates and some 1,000 invertebrates.
The site offers enormous research potential, given that the rate of discovery of fossils has overtaken the rate at which the data are recorded, according to the article.
The research has been hampered by the smuggling of fossils and by the manufacture of fraudulent and composite specimens, Zhou said.
(Xinhua News Agency February 21, 2003)
