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ID Request - China Underwater Cave Fossil Wall


Rachel Berkley

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Hello fossil experts! I am an underwater documentary filmmaker based in China. I came across a fossil wall in the underwater karst cave systems of Guangxi province this year and am hoping you can help shed some light on them for me, as I am admittedly not a fossil expert in any way.

 

The fossil wall is approximately 25-40 meters underwater in the freshwater limestone cave systems in the mountains of central Guangxi province. I have not attempted to count them yet, and as far as I know no one has studying or catalogued them. The cave is well known in the cave diving community of China. But, as you can imagine, this is a pretty small community. 

 

I would appreciate any help identifying the type of fossils they may be, and any relevant information on approximate dates or the way in which they would have arrived in these cave systems. As I said, this in not my area of expertise, so all information is useful!

 

(I am having attaching the photos with this post, so will attempt to post them separately)

 

Thank you!

 

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Unfortunately I had to compress the images quite a bit in order to upload them. Hopefully they are still clear enough for identification.

 

Thanks!

Guangxi Fossil Wall.jpg

Screen Shot 2018-12-18 at 1.34.19 PM.jpg

Screen Shot 2018-12-18 at 1.36.34 PM 2.jpg

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Welcome toTFF!

There is no scale in the pictures to determine size.

From what I can see in the first picture (the others are to small to view details) it looks like invertebrate shell fossils in the limestone.

The age of the rock should show up on a geologic map of the area.

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Darwin said: " Man sprang from monkeys."

Will Rogers said: " Some of them didn't spring far enough."

 

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I''m thinking Mesozoic carbonates, anyway, and so possibly the white areas are the remains of rudists, so kind of agreeing with Tony here

carbonate=limestone

 

 

 

 

 

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21 hours ago, Pemphix said:

@Crazyhen

 

May know a little bit more about it...

That’s very interesting but unfortunately I could not tell what is it from these photos.  Would it be possible to take more photos for possible identification?  

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I would suggest you get into contact with local speleologists and/or geologists. I'm sure they could tell you much more than us on the basis of just a few photos.

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Greetings from the Lake of Constance. Roger

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Thank you everyone for your replies!

 

I had tried to upload photos which were less compressed, but the system rejected them every time. It could be a problem with the VPN which I need to use to access your forum. I will try again. I will also bring something to provide a sense of scale when I return to the caves next month.

 

Yes, you are correct that the caves walls are limestone (karst) formations. Thank you very much Paciphacops for the paper on Devonian Rocks in Guangxi. That is very helpful! Unfortunately I have not been able to find any experts in the area. It is extremely remote and the responses I've received from professors in other Chinese universities has been quite disappointing. 

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