Hou Xianguang finds the Chengjiang fauna
Hou Xianguang, then a young researcher looking for Cambrian arthropods in the Maotianshan Shales near Chengjiang in Yunnan, split a slab and found a soft-bodied fossil — the first of what became one of the two great Cambrian Lagerstätten. Chengjiang is about ten million years older than the Burgess Shale and on the opposite side of the Cambrian world, and its existence transformed the Burgess fauna from a single spectacular deposit into a global pattern. It also yielded the earliest widely accepted chordates. The discovery is generally reported as occurring in July 1984; the specific day is stated variously and is not confirmed here.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Chengjiang fossil site, Yunnan · site · China
- Konservat-Lagerstätte (exceptional preservation) · concept · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
International Chronostratigraphic Chart
Supports the stage and period boundary ages used throughout this pack, including the Cambrian base at 538.8 ± 0.2 Ma on recent editions against 541.0 ± 1.0 Ma on earlier ones. V55 verification basis: this session had no network access to any source — WebFetch was egress-blocked and the WebSearch budget was exhausted — so the cited work was not retrieved and its pagination was not re-checked. No chart edition was opened, so the boundary figures are quoted from standing knowledge of the chart rather than read from it, and the edition in which the Cambrian base changed is not identified.
International Commission on Stratigraphy / IUGS · reissued regularly · Partly verified
International Commission on Stratigraphy, International Chronostratigraphic Chart (successive editions)