Beijing Olympics champions triumph where dinosaurs used to tread

Name: Natural snow in Beijing causes delays to Winter Olympics ski slopestyle events
Uploaded: 2022-02-17T06:00:24.000Z
Duration: 2 min 6 s
Description: Natural snow in Beijing causes delays to Winter Olympics ski slopestyle events

Ancient natural features make the Chinese capital the only city in the world to host a Games in both summer and winter

Geologists have found some of the oldest rocks on Earth in the region and dinosaur tracks abound

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The Badaling section of China’s Great Wall in Beijing, with the Mesozoic granite visible beneath it. Photo: Beijing SHRIMP Centre

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Published: 2:00pm, 17 Feb 2022Updated: 2:35pm, 17 Feb 2022

Beijing is the only city in the world to host a Summer and Winter Olympics, thanks to its ancient geological terrain making it suitable for sports of all seasons.

Geologists in the city said the natural features of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou area, including the huge granite slab beneath the Great Wall, date to the time of the dinosaurs and nearby Yanqing National Geopark is rich in their tracks and other remains.

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Natural snow in Beijing causes delays to Winter Olympics ski slopestyle events

While the indoor ice events are taking place in downtown Beijing, much of the skiing and snowboarding action is taking place some 180km (110 miles) to the north, in the city of Zhangjiakou, Hebei province.

“The mountainous terrain provides excellent natural conditions for the siting of the Winter Olympics,” the researchers said, in an article published this month in the peer-reviewed journal International Geology Review.

“Zhangjiakou is dominated by mountains and plateaus. Some mountains are craggy, forming tourist destinations due to the unique scenery, particularly when they are covered with snow in the winter season,” they said.

The team, from the Beijing Sensitive High Resolution Ion Microprobe (SHRIMP) Centre – part of the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences – detailed the geological evolution of the Games site and the locations and formations of rocks representing different historical periods.

The Mesozoic era – from about 250 million to 66 million years ago, which includes the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods – is one of the six geological evolutionary stages defined in the study.