Tongguer Dinosaur Cemetery

Tongguer Dinosaur Cemetery

Tongguer Dinosaur Cemetery is a cultural tourism attraction.

The Tongguer Dinosaur Cemetery is located 9 kilometers northeast of Erenhot. It is a rather desolate area covered with wormwood, and it is the world-renowned site of dinosaur fossil production. A dinosaur museum has now been built here. As early as over 70 million years ago during the Mesozoic Era, this place was the kingdom of dinosaurs—the largest reptiles on Earth. The relatively complete fossils of various types of dinosaurs unearthed from this "hometown of dinosaurs," including dinosaur egg fossils and crocodile fossils, have provided great insight into these long-extinct animals. In addition, the largest and most complete dinosaur fossil in Asia was excavated in Sonid Right Banner, measuring 21 meters in length and 6 meters in height, and was named the Chagan Nur Dragon. Analysis suggests that 70 million years ago, Tongguer was lush with trees and dotted with lakes, serving as a kingdom of reptiles. Following drastic changes to the Earth's surface—mountain collapses, earthquakes, and upheavals—the dinosaurs and many other reptiles that had lived here for 10 to 20 million years became extinct. This area has since become a world-famous treasure trove of animal fossils, commonly referred to as the "Tongguer" Plateau or the "Dinosaur Cemetery."

As early as the beginning of the 19th century, Tongguer attracted exploration teams and expeditions from many countries. According to experts, Inner Mongolia is the birthplace of horses, and over 10 million years ago, the ancestor of the horse, the three-toed horse, already lived in the Tongguer Basin. To date, dinosaur fossils discovered in the Tongguer region include the Asian Ornithomimus, the European-style Alectrosaurus, the Jiangjunosaurus, and the Mongolian Mandschurosaurus. Starting in 1959, Chinese geologists, archaeologists, and paleontologists excavated a relatively complete duck-billed dinosaur skeleton of the "Bactrosaurus" species, as well as fossils of small carnivorous dinosaurs. In recent years, some important fossil specimens have been discovered, considered rare treasures in the world. In recent years, a complete dinosaur fossil was excavated near the Chagan Nur Alkali Mine in Sonid Right Banner, currently the largest and most complete dinosaur fossil in Asia. Expert analysis determined that this dinosaur fossil belonged to the sauropod family, the largest type within the dinosaur family, measuring 21 meters in length, 6 meters in height, and weighing nearly 100 tons. It has now been officially named the "Chagan Nur Dinosaur."

Tongguer is one of China’s world-famous sites for mammal fossils. It was discovered in 1928 by the Third Central Asiatic Expedition organized by the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and they conducted large-scale excavations in the area in 1930.

Tongguer (Tung-gur) is not an official geographical name and cannot be found on maps. It was proposed in 1929 by L. E. Spock based on the names of two local wells. Our investigation of Tongguer confirmed that there are two wells in the area, respectively called Gulin Huduoge and Donghuren Huduoge.

Nowadays, the term Tongguer generally refers to the entire distribution area of the Tongguer strata—a platform that rises above the surrounding terrain in the northwest, gradually merging with the surrounding land surface to the east and south, where the Tongguer Formation strata no longer appear, except at its eastern and southern edges where a salt lake has formed steep cliffs that reveal the Tongguer Formation strata. The northwestern part of the platform rises more than 40 meters above the surrounding terrain, forming steep cliffs with excellent exposure, which is also the area with the highest concentration of fossils.

The bottom of the Tongguer Formation and its contact relationship with the underlying strata are not exposed in this area. The only place where the underlying strata are visible is 25 kilometers northeast of Saihan Gaobi Sumu, where Oligocene strata containing Lophiomeryx fossils are found, but no direct contact with the Tongguer Formation is observed either. The Tongguer Formation is best exposed in Mandelin. It consists mainly of lacustrine sedimentary sand-mudstone (with no visible base), with the top eroded and often covered by later layers of sandstone and conglomerate. According to previous research, the Tongguer Fauna includes 27 species, among which Platybelodon is the most numerous and famous. Due to the wide variety of fossils, simple stratigraphic sequence, and clear time period, the Tongguer Fauna was quickly recognized internationally as a typical representative fauna of the late Middle Miocene in East Asia. In 1959, a Sino-Soviet paleontological expedition attempted to conduct large-scale excavation and research here (at Aershan Chabu), but it was interrupted for well-known reasons. Most of the fossil specimens were also lost during the Cultural Revolution. The Aershan Chabu expedition only added two new species to the Tongguer Fauna.

Today, almost all fossil specimens of the Tongguer Fauna are housed in the American Museum of Natural History. This type locality is in China, yet very few Tongguer Fauna fossil specimens are preserved there, which is quite regrettable.

In 1986, the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Xilin Gol Cultural Relics Protection Management Station jointly formed the Inner Mongolia Tongguer Expedition Team. Led by renowned middle-aged scholar Professor Qiu Zhanxiang (currently the director of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a member of the 1959 Sino-Soviet Expedition Team), the team conducted excavation and investigation in areas such as Dabuhar, Junwugur South, Aershan Chabu, Mandelin Chaba, Morigen, approximately 2 kilometers northwest of the Huerguolajin tripod, and Gu'erhulajin Aorigele.

The most significant finds from this expedition were fossils of small mammals. Previous expeditions by the American Third Central Asiatic Expedition and the Sino-Soviet Paleontological Expedition focused primarily on collecting fossils of large mammals, resulting in very few findings of small mammal fossils—only six species with limited material. By using the sieving method, we collected nearly 3 tons of sand samples and discovered a large number of teeth, totaling nearly 2,000 specimens. This expanded the original six species to 22 new species, with at least three being discovered in China for the first time.