According to the Qinghai Geological Survey Institute, its project "Investigating Important Geological Heritages in Northwest China (Qinghai)" has been completed, discovering 242 important geological relics, including 10 world-class geological relics, 66 national-grade relics, and 166 provincial-grade relics.

Geological relics refer to precious and non-renewable geological phenomena that have developed and been left over by various internal and external dynamic geological processes during the long history of the earth’s evolution. They are important windows into and evidence for studying the evolution of the earth, understanding it, and carrying out the popularization of science, and are also important resources for environmental protection.

The world-class geological relics discovered in Qinghai include profile of the Changthang lakes area in Golmud that date to the early Pleistocene Epoch, the modern glaciers in the A'nyemachen Mountains with highest elevation and largest distribution area alongside the Yellow River basin, and the Golmud Qarhan potassium chloride salt deposits representing climate changes during the uplift of the plateau.

Bai Yongshan, a senior engineer with the Qinghai Geological Survey Institute, said that on the basis of these geological surveys Qinghai's most unique geological relics are relics that date from 570 to 250 million years ago, that came as a result of the formation and demise of an ocean, and that are in forms of unique highland lakes, wetlands, and glaciers that formed during uplift of the plateau. At the same time, the newly discovered karst geomorphic geological relics fill gaps in high altitude areas of Qinghai and even northwest China that are without karts geomorphic geological relics.

At present, the project team has made a proposal to the local government on a preliminary preservation plan: to divide the province into four relic preservation planning sub-regions and 36 relic preservation planning areas. Detailed investigations are to be carried out in 22 relic-concentration areas to strengthen the construction of geological relic point monitoring networks, and proposals have been made for the construction of eight geological (mining) parks.

Editor: Tommy Tan.