Yushe Basin, Shanxi Province

Abstract

Yushe Basin is an intermontaine basin located in northern China. It lies at the eastern edge of the Loess Plateau, just west of the Taihang Mountains. Its fluvial, lake and, finally, loess deposits accumulated during the last 6.5 Myr and contain many fossiliferous horizons. As a site for early scientific explorations, Yushe figures into the history of the development of vertebrate paleontology in China over the last century. We were able to relocate many of the early twentieth century fossil localities of Yushe, and add significant new paleontological discoveries. Fossils document Late Miocene assemblages, terrestrial faunas characteristic of North China during most of the Pliocene, and an Early Pleistocene community comparable to that of Nihewan Basin. The succession of Yushe faunas spanning the Pliocene Epoch is unsurpassed elsewhere in China in richness and depth of time covered. The Pliocene assemblages characterizing the Yushean chronofauna cluster in two successive units, and provide the basis for characterizing the Gaozhuangian and Mazegouan land mammal stage/ages. This volume documents the geological context of the rocks and faunas of Yushe and provides the justification for age determination of the fossiliferous deposits.