Flash flood accidentally reveals 'heavenly treasure': So rare that it shocked China and the world!

Thinking that they were just ordinary stones, the old farmer sold them for a very cheap price. He had no idea that they were "national treasures", "treasures" for archaeologists and historical experts. This discovery even shocked China at that time.

Accidentally found rare "national treasure" in China

The story goes that when a mountainous district in Hubei province, China suffered a major flash flood, a lot of rocks and soil from Thanh Long mountain fell down, causing huge damage to farmers' orange fields.

A few days after everything returned to normal, an old farmer named Chu Thien Nhat and his neighbors went to the fields to take care of and clean up.

After the first few picks, Chu Thien Nhat saw a strange oval-shaped stone , as big as a bowl, milky white in color but not heavy at all.

Photo: Sohu

The old farmer found these stones strange and collected them and brought them home. After a while, Chu Thien Nhat forgot about their existence.

A year later, in 1996, a trader from Henan Province (China) came to Zhu Tianyi's village to buy oranges. Unfortunately, his car got stuck in a mud pit. Zhu Tianyi suddenly thought of the strange pile of rocks at home, so he ran home and took some out and placed them under his car tire.

Being a shrewd merchant, he soon realized that this was not an ordinary stone and stole some to bring back. Not long after, the merchant returned to the village but this time his target was the strange stones. He negotiated with Chu Thien Nhat and bought each stone for 70 cents.

Seeing that selling stones brought in a lot of money, Chu Thien Nhat went home and collected all the stones he had picked up to exchange for a decent amount of money.

This news quickly spread throughout the village. The villagers saw this and immediately took their hoes to the mountain to find strange stones to sell to traders.

A village official became suspicious and reported the story to experts from the Commune Cultural Relics Department that someone was buying "local eggs" (as the villagers called them).

The Commune Cultural Relics Department immediately informed an expert from the Department of Cultural Relics - named Vuong Chinh Hoa - to come to the scene to investigate the incident.

With a skilled eye, this man turned pale and told the villagers: "This is a dinosaur egg fossil, a national treasure!".

After the archaeological team arrived at the scene, they found traces of several dinosaur nests formed of red mudstone, surrounded by many pieces of eggshells.

Discovery shocked the world

In this way, a discovery that shocked both China and the world was made clear: "Dinosaur egg fossils appeared in Hubei". 

According to measurements and identification by experts, these dinosaur egg fossils were determined to have originated from the Hugeng Formation during the late Cretaceous period of the Mesozoic Era , dating from 67 million to 135 million years ago.

Dinosaur egg fossils are protected as "national treasures". (Photo: Website of Hubei province, China).

Conducting further archaeological excavations, experts discovered an area containing dinosaur egg fossils of up to 4.2 ^{square kilometers} . All the egg nests were laid by at least 5 different dinosaur species . This was the most concentrated, most diverse, and largest population of dinosaur egg fossils in China at that time.

In late July 1997, three fossilized ornithopod dinosaur skeletons from the late Cretaceous period, about 70 million years ago, were discovered in a village 55 kilometers from Qinglong Mountain. After being revealed, it once again shocked China and the world. The two major discoveries made Hubei the only place in the world where both dinosaur egg fossils and dinosaur bones were found.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS ) said that since the Hubei dinosaur egg fossils were discovered in early 1995, they have been examined and identified by many leading experts from the China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), the National Museum of Geology, the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences. 

This dinosaur egg fossil population is a rare and irreplaceable geological heritage, CAS said .

After news of the "national treasure" was revealed, the price of each fossilized dinosaur egg on the black market skyrocketed: from 70 cents to 800 yuan each.

The high demand has fueled the poaching of fossilized dinosaur eggs, despite efforts by archaeologists to protect the site. The thieves operate very sophisticatedly, often only digging at night.

To remedy this, the Hubei government established the Qinglongshan Dinosaur Fossil Nature Reserve and built a fence around it.

Dinosaur Museum. (Photo: Sohu).

Dinosaur egg fossils are kept and displayed at the Dinosaur Museum. (Photo: Website of Hubei Province, China).

The official website of Hubei Province said that the Qinglongshan Nature Reserve is an area affected by many tectonic and thermal metamorphic processes, which have resulted in steep mountain peaks, streams, waterfalls, exotic flowers and plants, and many natural caves and geological relics of great significance.

According to the latest survey by relevant geological experts, there are more than 2,000 dinosaur egg fossils on the surface of Thanh Long Mountain alone.  It can be said that the fossilized dinosaur egg nests in Hubei, China are rich and diverse, very rare in the world.

Inside the Dinosaur Museum. (Photo: Sohu).

Therefore, the local government has invested 50 million yuan to build a Dinosaur Museum, covering an area of ​​1,200 square meters, near Thanh Long Son. This is a place to "tell" visitors interesting stories about dinosaurs in the past, thereby hoping to increase people's awareness of preserving dinosaur egg fossils in particular, thereby limiting and ending the theft of fossil eggs.

Currently, Chinese experts continue to search for dinosaur-related fossils in this area.