Shell Hill

　　Introduction     Situated in a desert area to the southeast of Nuomuhong Township, Dulan County. Shell Hill is not very high — calling it a "hill" is a poetic exaggeration by the desert dwellers. It stretches from east to west, about sixty to seventy meters wide and roughly two kilometers long. Countless shells, ranging in size from as small as a thumbnail to as large as an old-style coin, are fused together with salt-alkali-rich silt, layer upon layer, forming a vast and varied accumulation. This area was once an ancient sea with boundless blue waters, but now the sea has receded and the land has risen. Shell Hill is a remnant and a witness of that ancient sea, embodying a page of Earth’s dramatic geological transformation.    

　　 Delingha, Qinghai