10 recent Chinese additions to the World Heritage List

Visitors are seen at the Location of the First Chengjiang Fauna Fossil Discovered in Chengjiang county. [Photo/IC]

3. Chengjiang Fossil Site

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.

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 groups emerged.

It was added into the list on July 1, 2012.