About 13 square kilometres of volcanic country in central Shandong, roughly 22 kilometres from Linqu County in China, built on the diatomite beds of the Shanwang Formation. Diatomite is made of the silica shells of algae and settles so finely that it preserves what almost nothing else does: outlines of skin, hair, scales and feathers, and insect wings with the veins still clear and some of the colour still in them. More than 600 species have been described from beds around 17 million years old, in a dozen broad categories, from spiders and amphibians to birds and mammals. The fossil birds are the best preserved found anywhere in China. The volcanic landscape that produced the lake is a large part of why the park exists at all.
Miocene insects, birds and mammals with skin, hair and feathers · Miocene, ~17 mya
This ground is protected. Photograph it, record it, leave it where it lies. On US federal land the Paleontological Resources Preservation Act 2009 makes collecting vertebrate fossils an offence, and penalties are real.
China
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This is remote ground. The closest other places on the map are a long way off.
