Following on from the ISLEV meeting, I then spent four days travelling around Yunnan Provence in Southern China as part of an organised post-conference field trip. The idea behind these sorts of field trips are to allow foreign researchers to visit sites that they know from the literature, but that they might not get opportunity to do so otherwise.
Day 1 saw us check out some Silurian strata close to Qujing before heading north to visit Fuyuan County. We were treated to some breathtaking views after a climb at the source Pearl River, and then later guided through an epic cave system of the karst landform in Fuyuan.
Day 2 saw us leap up through geological time into the Mesozoic “Age of Reptiles”. We spent the day visiting Luoping Biota National Geopark. This was a real treat for the absolutely spectacular preservation of the fossils, but also the views. I was most excited to see Luopingcoelacanthus, the oldest known evidence of embryos preserved inside a coelacanth!
On Day 3 we moved back in time to the Cambrian, the time period when the earth saw unprecedented numbers and diversity of complex early life. At Chengjiang Fauna National Geopark we saw the “oldest preserved animal community”; it included strange early animals such as the fearsome Anomolacaris (thought to be an early relative of arthropods) and the truly weird Hallucigenia (it is so weird, those describing it thought they may be hallucinating) . Again we visited a “Geopark” built to conserve and research the local fossil fauna. I think it would be great to see more of these parks in Australia to protect our own unique geological heritage.
For our final day we returned to my favourite time period, the Devonian “Age of Fishes”. We stopped at a few different sites in Wuding County and were not disappointed. The rocks were absolutely full of fabulous fish fossils! I think the find of the day was Martha’s giant Holonema specimen ( a type of arthrodire placoderm). What a way to end a marvellous field trip filled with fossils, scenery and great food. Thank you to our colleagues from IVPP, Beijing, for this unforgettable experience.
Dr Alice Clement 
So exciting! I really envie you! Which one is the featus? The one that looks like a shrimp( or one of them with two legs)? Were there any fossils of dinosaurus? Idon’t know the names you mentioned of different fossils. Looking forward to read more from your trip! Kram Birgitta och Doris
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Hejsan Birgitta,
kul att höra från dig! I didn’t include a picture of the coelacanth embryos, although I wish I could have seen them myself. I believe that specimen is in a museum elsewhere. We didn’t see dinosaurs, but there were some great fossils of marine reptiles, including Ichthyosaurs and many of one called Nothosaurus.
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