Qingtianhe Science Tour Route

The geological, natural and human attractions distributed on this route mainly include parallel unconformity surface, Jiuzhang rotary, hornstone fossil, striped tuff, mother hen peak, Buddha's ear pool, Luohan rock, whale bay, Sangu spring, natural great wall, etc.

1、Whale Bay

Whale Bay is a semicircular turn of the Qingtian River and is named Whale Bay because the shape of its inner ridge resembles the head of a whale and the nearly two-meter-high eroded edge resembles the lip of a whale. It is a unique geomorphic form formed by the long-term erosion and undercutting of the river through the near north-south tensional rift zone and near east-west secondary fracture formed in the background of the East Asian Rift Valley.

2、Bamboo leafy tuff

In the Cambrian period, more than 500 million years ago, this was a land surface sea. Calcium carbonate deposited in clean seawater at a depth of less than 60 meters was stirred up by strong storms before it was fully consolidated, forming gravels of varying sizes and resembling bamboo leaves that were redeposited and cemented into rock to form bamboo leaf tuffs.

3、Oolitic tuffs

In the Cambrian land surface sea more than 500 million years ago, the turbulent environment caused small fragments floating in the seawater to intermittently adsorb carbonate fractions to form particles with concentric pattern of laminated shells, shaped like fish eggs, hence the name.

4、Stromatolite

Also called stacked limestone, it is a kind of limestone with stacked structure formed by blue-green algae group. It has internal fine-grained layers, which are circular or irregular in plan; in section, it is columnar and palisade of different sizes and parallel to each other. As the blue-green algal filaments secrete gelatinous mucus, they capture various floating chert particles and form light-colored chip-rich layers, while algal cells grow and spread on the surface of chip-rich layers to form dark-colored algal-rich layers. The algae cells grow and spread on the surface of the chip-rich layer, forming a dark algae-rich layer.

5、Hen's Peak

The nearly east-west directional dense joint belt formed in the background of the rift valley, through weathering and denudation, separated the hen peak from the whole mountain body and became a lonely peak. At the same time, in the process of separation, a round stone that fell from the collapse happened to be narrowly held in the middle of the rock crevice, making the peak look like a hen and the stone like an egg, hence the name.

6、Buddha's Ear Pool

Buddha's Ear Pool is mainly formed by the joint action of the river and the joint belt. During the flooding period, the river water carrying a large amount of sand and gravel, the huge energy generated by the descent of the small waterfall, strongly abraded and undercut the rocks under the waterfall, while the fragile characteristics of the joint belt led to the difference undercutting, forming a Buddha's ear-shaped pool under the waterfall.

7、Hornblende fossil

Mollusca Cephalopoda, superorder Nautilus, pearlhornite. Fossils are the remains or relics of organisms preserved in the strata. It is the main basis for geologists to determine the age of strata. In the ancient sea more than 400 million years ago, there lived a carnivorous animal with a shell composed of calcareous or horny material, which is called hornblende because of the horn cone shape of the fossil formed. The hornblende fossil in this area is one of the main fossils in the Ordovician strata.

8、Parallel non-integration

Parallel unconformity is a kind of stratigraphic contact relationship, which means that the upper and lower sets of strata are basically the same in production, but there is a long interruption in deposition, which is a true reflection of the vicissitudes of change. The parallel unconformity here, the lower stratum is Cambrian dolomite formed before 490 million years ago, and the upper stratum is Middle Ordovician yellow-brown phylloclastic mud dolomite formed before 438 million years ago, and the gravelly sandstone at the bottom of it represents the bottom of new sea erosion.

9. Huancui Gorge

Huancui Gorge is a canyon surrounded by green vegetation. The canyon is about 3,000 meters long, with a maximum depth of more than 500 meters, with cliffs and cliff platforms on both sides of the canyon. The bottom of the valley is curved and gently flowing. In spring and summer, the vegetation is green, and in autumn, the mountains are full of red leaves, forming a magnificent landscape with the vegetation.

10. Nine-bend rotary (big bend)

It is one of the most characteristic landscapes of Qingtian River Canyon. Controlled by the near north-south fracture, the Qingtian River Canyon twists and turns, forming a continuous horseshoe-shaped bend, which connects the bends and the scenery is infinite. The mountain ridges are intertwined, resembling the convergence of giant whales, and nature's magic work is amazing.

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