Sandstone and Karst cave landforms are the two main landform types in Zhangjiajie UNESCO Global Geopark, with the former being seldomly seen in the world. The sandstone landforms in Zhangjiajie Global Geopark consists of pillars, peaks, mesas, natural bridges, gorges, valleys, streams, lakes and other colorful geological heritages such as special stratigraphic sections and fossils. In the geopark, more than 3,000 peak and pillars have developed, among which 1000 peak pillars are over 200- meters high. The height from the peak top to the surface ranges from 10 meters to 400 m. The peak forests, deep barranca and ravines and surrounding streams together form a unique, wonderful, unsearchable and mysterious landscape with a tremendous scale and great influence power.
Karst caves are another important geological heritage type in Zhangjiajie UNESCO Global Geopark and Huanglongdong Cave is the most classic one with scores of caves. It is located in the Triassic thick layer dolomitic limestone area. The cave is 30km in length, 160m in height. It consist of 5 carst caves which are connected from top to bottom and was one of the super long caves in the world. Huanglongong Cave, with varied water-trace, nest, brim-slot, inverse stone bud and colorful chemical deposit, has stalactite, stalagmite, stalagnate, stone-fall, sheet, stone-curtain, stone-flower, stone-basin, stone-flag, stone-fruit, stone-branch, ¡°stone golden flower¡± and ¡°Shihua watch¡±. The corridors, big halls and rainfalls in the cave formed a fabulous underground maze. The formative process of Huanglongdong Cave reflects the effects of the neotectonics intermittent in the northwestern region of Hunan province and indicates the classic characteristics of Karst caves. Sancerre, the senior adviser from UNESCO World Heritage Investigation Committee, once said that it is the cave where the stalagmites are the most concentrated and the most vivid he had ever seen in the world.
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