Yuanmou-Type Soil Forest Landscape

This is a representative type of sandstone landscape found in the subtropical region in Sichuan and Yunnan Provinces that is influenced by the southwest monsoon from the Indian Ocean. The parent rocks are Neogene, Upper Pliocene-Quaternary Early Pleistocene riverine and lacustrine facies semi-consolidated conglomerate, silty sandstone and mudstone, and the landscape features were formed by rainstorm action into a network of depressions, channels and groups of mixed-level earth pillars that look like a forest from a distance. In 1977, Qian Fang called it the ‘soil forest landscape’. The soil pillars are generally 5–20 m tall and can be up to 40 m tall. The top of each pillar has a slightly inclined slope that is actually the original ground surface. There are approximately 14 soil forests in Yuanmou, of which the rocks of Hutiao (Tiger Jumping) Beach and Banguo are mainly sandstone mixed with soils, and the rocks in Langbapu and Baini (White Mud) Bay are dominantly clay and shale. In...