Qualla: Shanwang National Geological Park

Shanwang National Geological Park: Introduction

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Seventeen million years ago, in a landscape of lakes and volcanic hills in what is now central Shandong Province, an insect landed on the surface of a shallow body of water. Microscopic diatom shells slowly settled over it, and over the millennia, that fine-grained sediment turned to stone, preserving the insect's wing veins in perfect clarity. This is the kind of fossilization that makes the Shanwang National Geological Park one of the most extraordinary paleontological sites in the world: not just the bones and shells that most fossil beds offer, but skin, hair, scales, and feathers, captured in diatomite with a precision that borders on portraiture.

Shanwang National Geological Park: A Window Seventeen Million Years Deep

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The fossils at Shanwang come from the Shanwang Formation, a series of diatomite beds deposited during the early to middle Miocene epoch. Diatomite forms from the accumulated silica shells of diatoms, single-celled algae that lived in the ancient lakes of the region. Because the s...

Shanwang National Geological Park: A Catalog of Ancient Life

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The diversity of fossils at Shanwang is as remarkable as their preservation. Among the insects alone, researchers have classified 11 orders, 46 families, 100 genera, and 182 species. The birds found here are the most abundant and best-preserved avian fossils yet discovered in Chi...

Shanwang National Geological Park: Volcanic Roots

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Shanwang is not only a fossil site. The park covers approximately 13 square kilometers of terrain shaped by volcanic activity that predates and overlaps with the fossil-bearing lake deposits. This volcanic topography created the basins where diatom-rich lakes formed, providing th...

Shanwang National Geological Park: A Lagerstatte of Global Importance

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In paleontology, sites of exceptional fossil preservation are called Lagerstatten, a German term meaning "storage places." Shanwang qualifies as one of only a handful of such sites in China, and it stands alongside deposits like Germany's Messel Pit and Canada's Burgess Shale as ...