Abstract
There are some 70,000 geologists in China. The organization of the science is relatively complex. Prominent, powerful, and of widespread influence is the Ministry of Geology and Mineral Resources. There is also involvement by the Ministry of Education and the independent Chinese Academy of Sciences (Academia Sinica). Geologically, the vast area of the People's Republic of China belongs largely to the Eurasian plate of the present. This includes various palaeoplates, one of which is the South China Plate (including the Yangtze Platform). A research project has been established involving eight Chinese scientists and eight from the British Isles. Five visits to China in 1978, 1983, 1985, 1986, and 1988 have all allowed field work in the Yangtze Platform, parts of it involving primary investigation. Thus, to the author the area has become something of a gateway to the geology of China. The Yangtze Platform provides the best known sections of Ordovician and Silurian rocks in China but the sequence also includes important Sinian (late Precambrian) and Cambrian deposits. The research project, named Transhemisphere Telychian, involves close study of Llandovery faunas from sections in the British Isles and eventual comparison with sections around the Yangtze Platform. The work is confined to rocks of Telychian age representing only a few million years of late Llandovery (early Silurian) time. The foreign geologist in China has the opportunity to see much besides the geology and to visit places where tourists are unlikely to go.
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