A treasure trove of Cambrian fossils has been discovered in southern China, providing a window on marine life shortly after Earth’s first mass extinction event

Han Zeng at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology in China and his colleagues began finding fossils at a quarry in the mountainous region of Huayuan County in Hunan Province in 2021.

So far, they have analysed 8681 fossils from 153 species, nearly 60 per cent of which are new to science. The team has christened this ancient ecosystem the Huayuan biota and say the site is comparable and possibly superior to the most famous Cambrian fossil site, the Burgess Shale in Canada.