Chengjiang is a city in Yuxi, Yunnan Province, China. It is located just north of Fuxian Lake. The name Chengjiang is written differently in simplified and traditional Chinese characters. In pinyin, the name is spelled Chéngjiāng. The city was also known by the older name Tchinkiang.

Chengjiang Fossil Site

In evolutionary biology and paleontology, Chengjiang is known for its discovery of soft-tissue fossils in the Maotianshan Shales. These fossils are more than 518 million years old and date to the Cambrian explosion, a time when many life forms first appeared. Scientists say these fossils are as remarkable as those found in the Burgess Shale and are much older. These fossils are among the most important discoveries of the 20th century. They show great detail, include many different types of ancient animals, and help scientists study how life on Earth evolved. In 2012, the Changjiang Fossil Site was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list.

The fossils were first found by Henri Mansuy and Jaques Deprat in 1912, the year after Charles Walcott published his work on the Burgess Shale. It was not until 1984 that Hou Xian-guang, a professor at Yunnan University in Kunming and director of the Research Center for Chengjiang Biota, recognized the importance of the fossils in the region. Before this, Hou worked at the Palaeontological Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Nanjing.

Chengjiang is a city that is not very developed but has large deposits of phosphate, a mineral found above and below the rock layers that contain the fossils. Phosphate mining in the area began around the same time Hou discovered the fossils. By 2003, mining provided about two-thirds of the city’s income. To protect the fossils, efforts were made to stop mining to support the city’s UNESCO listing. However, this led to increased mining activity, which damaged the fossil-bearing rock layers through erosion, landslides, and direct destruction.

Chengjiang faces a challenge: protecting the valuable early Cambrian fossils while relying on the phosphate industry for economic support. Finding a balance between using the land for mining and preserving it for scientific study is difficult but necessary.