Scientific Characteristics And Values Of Dinosaur Fossils In Geoparks, China

Over the past more than 100 years, dinosaur has been one of the most fascinating topics for the paleontologists and even the whole of mankind. Dinosaurs appeared at the end of the Triassic period which started 230 million year ago, and finally exterminated in the late of Cretaceous period (6500 years ago). China is one of a handful of countries in the world which has rich dinosaur fossils recourses. From the early Jurassic to the dinosaurs’extinction period, we have discovered all of representative dinosaur fauna in all geological periods in our country. They are distributed in a wide range and preserved very well.Except for Taiwan and Fujian, dinosaur fossils have been found in all of other provinces in China. In order to protect these valuable non-renewable resources, the establishment of geoparks is the one of the most effective ways. Generally, geoparks were sited in the areas where are more representative dinosaur fossils and the areas where have continuous, integrated and characteristics sedimentary stratigraphic section. Since 2000, the Sichuan Zigong Dinosaur National Geological Park was approved by the Ministry of Land and Resources in the first assessment, up to now, China has established 16 Dinosaur Geoparks, located in 12 provinces (autonomous regions), including two world-class, six national level and eight provincial (autonomous regions) -level dinosaurs geoparks.The valuable dinosaur fossils have marked characteristics. Through field investigation, cross-section observation, and based on the evolution characteristics of dinosaurs in China, the author discusses the dinosaur fossils characters in Chinese dinosaurs Geoparks. Two study fields are divided according to the regional evolution of dinosaurs: the western (southwestern) region and the east, north and north-east region.Western (southwestern) region is the main distribution area of Jurassic dinosaurs which is the typical representative region of the early dinosaurs; and the other region is the main distribution area of Cretaceous dinosaurs. The paper puts emphasis on research of the paleoenvironment, the characteristics of the times, representative dinosaur fauna composition and the characteristics fossil layer, taking Zigong World Geopark, Yunnan Lufeng Dinosaurs National Geological Park, the Paleontology National Geopark of Liaoning, Alxa Geopark and Erlianhot dinosaurs Geopark as the examples. Furthermore, the author introduces the characteristics of dinosaurs’resource in the two study areas synthetically.A plenty of dinosaur fossils have not only provided Chinese paleontology study with many valuable scientific materials, but also have high value for education and economic development.