1. Wulongtan (five-dragon pond )
Wulongtan locates at the entrance to Longtanxia. It is named from the five ponds which look like the five dragons meeting in the valley, is a water body scene formed by artificial dam in Quaternary deeply incised valley. The pond is 300m long, 50-150m wide. On the southern bank of the pond, stands a long red cliff with a height of more than 100m. The river falls down here forming Wulongpu waterfall and hanging pitch. Two lonely peaks standing on the cliffs look just like two orangutans, therefore called “two orangutans watching waterfalls”.
2. Herring-cross bedding
Cross bedding is a kind of basic structure for sedimentary rock. Within the rock bedding the fine lamination regularly cross with it. In Meso-Proterozoic 1.2 billion years ago, here was littoral environment, the tides’ progress and retrogress made the quartz sandstone the fine laminations with opposite directions, lately formed the herring bedding.
3. Heilongguan(the gate to the black dragon pond)
1.2 billion years ago, two groups perpendicular joints developed in Meso-Proterozoic quartz sandstone under neo-tectonic setting. The flowing water deeply cut the bedding along joints concentrating places. Finally a screen valley (a line of sky) formed with sharp cliffs on both sides, 20m long, 1-3m wide and 50m deep. A pond in the valley bottom, with water 4-5m deep, just like a black dragon lying here, named Heilongtan( black dragon pond). The gate to the pond is called Heilongguan.
4. Urn valleys around male and female ponds
Urn is a kind of container in the north of China, characterized by its small mouth and big body. At the upper reach of Longtanxia valley, there are two urn valleys, which are formed by the erosion of the whirling flowing water. The urn around the male pond is a typical one, whose diameter is up to 20m, the wall arc 270°. The urn around the female pond is cut by flowing water to form the screen valley.
5. Shikan (the stone niches)
On both sides of the Longtanxia valley, stand red precipices high up to dozens of meters to one hundred meters. At the bottom of the precipices, a line of stone niche formed by the erosion of flowing water. With the uplift of the crust, the shikan rose to the middle of the precipices. Therefore the shikan provides us with abundant evidences for study on the neo-tectonic features and the uplift velocity of the strata.
6. The lane valley
Lane valley is a kind of screen valley, with flat bottom and straight standing cliff walls on both sides. There is a section of lane valley at Buddha cliff with ten meters wide and hundred meters long. The visitor walking in it just sense like in a little lane.
7. Buddha light and Luohan cliff
The cliff is alternatively composed of mid to thick-bedded compact quartz sandstone and thin-bedded loose pelitic sandstone. Within the quartz sandstone bed, the well developed column joints resulted in the formation of the stone columns which is vertical to the rock bed. The ball weathering made the stone column bear Luohan shapes. Owing to the light refraction, hundreds of Luohan in four lines are shining under the sun, just like Buddha light.
8. The water flows upwards
At this place, the river valley is just perpendicular to the strike of the bed. Its dip is same with the river’s flow direction, whereas the bed’s dip angle is bigger than that of the river. When sightseers walk in the valley along the river, they always sense the water flow upwards, because they incorrectly take the bed surface as reference.
9. Finger print stone
Ripple marks form while sandy sediments on the bed surface immigrate by water or wind. Finger print mark is a kind of typical interference ripple mark, its appearance is just like man’s finger print. Hundred of different ripple marks are found on huge collapsed rocks which randomly scatters within 3km long red stone valley, where is a natural museum for ripple marks.
10. The heaven book stone
The heaven book stone formed through the differential weathering. On the bed surface of thick-bedded quartz sandstone, we often find the thin-bedded pelitic sandstone or pelitic siltstone. After differential weathering, the residual formed different patterns. “one person on one stone” is the actual description for the scene.
11. The natural monument
The natural monument is a collapsed rock, more than 50m high. After collapse, the original horizontal bed became vertical now. It looks majestic and great, shapes like strong eagle, or flying bird, or diving fish, or thin knife back. Our nature endows it infinite beauty.
12. The chess board joint
Under the effect of the regional tectonic process, two group joints of nearly EW and nearly SN cross nearly perpendicularly. The joints were combined with the rock beds to cut the rocks into different blocks, looking like the chess board.