Laiyang Cretaceous Geopark, Shandong

This geopark is located at the heart of the Jiaodong Peninsula, Shandong Province, and covers a total area of 104 km². It is adjacent to the Yellow Sea to the south and is separated by the sea from the Liaodong Peninsula, the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese Archipelago. It became a provincial geopark in 2010 and a national geopark in 2011. The geopark consists of two areas, namely, Jingangkou and Phoenix Mountain. With the concentrated, successively deposited and well-exposed Cretaceous strata, the geopark is where the names of the Laiyang Group, Qingshan Group and Wangshi Group come from. It is also the location where dinosaur fossils and pterosaur fossils were first discovered in China. The world’s only complete Tsintaosaurus spinorhinus fossils and numerous dinosaur egg fossils were also found here. Research on the dinosaur egg fossils in Laiyang led to the establishment of the internationally recognised and universal dinosaur egg classification and naming system. In addition,...