Chinese airport toilet becomes tourist attraction after professor says it contains fossils

Fossils in the toilet are more than 400 million years old

An airport toilet in the southwest of China became a tourist attraction after a paleontologist revealed in a TV program that the material used to build some parts of the washbasin is filled with fossils.

Shen Shuzhong, a professor from Nanjing University’s School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, during a science education program at state broadcaster CCTV, talked about major species extinction events in the earth’s history. He then showed pictures he took of the washbasin in the toilet of Longdongbao International Airport in Guiyang, Guizhou.

“You can see the white patterns in the construction materials of the sink. These patterns are the fossils, belonging to the brachiopod fossil category which dates back to hundreds of millions of years ago”, Shen said.

“At that moment I had an impulse to take them down. These shells contain many secrets of the earth’s past, such as what was the environment then and what temperatures the seawater was measured at”.

Nevertheless, Shen didn’t expect that brief mention of the fossils would make the rounds on social media, triggering discussions among not only geology experts but also the general public, with reports of people turning up to take photos of the toilet.

The day after, Chen Shangbin, a geology professor from China University of Mining and Technology in Xuzhou of Jiangsu, who was attending a conference in Guiyang visited the airport’s toilet after watching the program.

“After seeing his photos, I was curious and wanted to have a look”.

An unnamed official at the airport’s propaganda department told that they received plenty of phone calls asking about the fossils in the toilet.

“I can tell you that it is fossil remains. We purchased the construction materials”, the official said.

After seeing the photos uploaded by Chen on social media, Qian Maiping, an expert from the Geological Society of Jiangsu Province, said he initially thought the fossils were stringocephalus, formed about 300 million years ago. But after double-checking with Shen, Qian later confirmed that the fossils found in the toilet were of a little-known species paraconchidium shiqianensis, which is 439 million years old.

He said the fossils were found scattered because the bodies of ancient creatures sinking to the seabed were stirred up by natural forces and experts said fossils discovered in the region cover almost every category of ancient species.

Liu Liang, the founder of Fujian Rock Nature History Museum, told it’s not uncommon to find fossils in rocks but the construction industry would rather not use the stones embedded with fossils since fossils affect the stone’s purity, density, and outer appearance.

“These kinds of rocks are only meaningful for clients who like fossils”, said Liu.

However, ever since Shen introduced the airport toilet’s fossil stones on TV, the stone’s price surged from 200 yuan ($31) per square meter to 1,000 yuan ($154), according to Liu.

However, it’s still not clear when the toilet was built using the fossils.

Source South China Morning Post