Keshiketeng Global Geopark

Keshiketeng Global Geopark

Keshiketeng Global Geopark is a national AAAA-level tourist attraction, a national geopark, and a science education base.

Inner Mongolia’s Keshiketeng Global Geopark is located in Keshiketeng Banner, Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia, covering an area of 1,343 square kilometers. It is characterized mainly by Quaternary glacial potholes, granite landforms, and geological structures. The park features 10 types of geological and geomorphological landscapes, namely glacial landforms, granite landforms, volcanic landforms, spring landforms, canyon landforms, lake landscapes, river landscapes, wetland landscapes, typical ore deposit and mining relic landscapes, and sandy land landscapes.

In addition to its rich and precious geological relics, Inner Mongolia’s Keshiketeng Global Geopark also boasts natural landscapes such as the Gongger Grassland, the virgin forests of the Greater Khingan Mountains, and the world’s narrowest river—the Haolai River. There are also historical and cultural sites such as the Bachiachuan Rock Paintings, the Jin Dynasty Great Wall (Jinjiabao), and the Ulan Butong Ancient Battlefield.

The river systems within Inner Mongolia’s Keshiketeng Global Geopark are divided into two types based on terrain and flow direction: external drainage systems and internal drainage systems. The external drainage systems include the Xar Moron River system and the Luan River system; the internal drainage systems consist of inland rivers and lakes, with about 60 natural lakes covering a water area of 420,000 mu, mostly distributed in the western high plains and the Hunshandake Desert area in the southwest.

Groundwater, depending on its occurrence conditions, can be classified into four types: pore water in loose sedimentary layers, pore-fracture water in clastic rocks, fracture-karst water in carbonate rocks, and fracture water in bedrock.

There is one hot spring area in the region, located in Reshuitang Town, about 30 kilometers northeast of Jingpeng Town. Based on its occurrence conditions, it can be divided into two types: medium-to-high temperature hot water in granite structural fractures and low-to-medium temperature hot water in Quaternary gravel pore spaces.

Keshiketeng Global Geopark is situated at the junction of three major landforms: the Greater Khingan Mountains, the Yanshan Mountains, and the Hunshandake Desert.

Keshiketeng Global Geopark is a comprehensive global geopark composed of Quaternary glacial relics, granite landforms, platform trough tectonic sutures, plateau lakes, rivers, volcanic landforms, deserts, grasslands, hot springs, and plateau wetlands.

On Beidashan Mountain, a branch of the Greater Khingan Mountains, there are unique granite landform landscapes. The granite stone forest group features diverse forms and densely developed horizontal and vertical joints. The development of horizontal joints not only relieves internal stress within the rock mass, preventing rock collapses caused by intersecting joints under gravity, but also greatly reduces the effect of ice wedging. Vertical joints of varying density divide the rock mass into blocks with different resistance to weathering, eventually forming the granite stone forest.

The Darinor Volcanic Group is one of the nine major volcanoes in Northeast China. The volcanic cones feature diverse shapes and are referred to as a “miniature landscape of the Wudalianchi Volcanoes.” The geopark also includes hot springs, deserts, grasslands, lakes, rivers, high mountain canyons, as well as granite intrusions and mineral resources in the Greater Khingan and Yanshan Mountains. Prehistoric human activity remnants can also be found in the geopark, with multiple preserved prehistoric human sites.

Source: Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Tourism Administration