BEIJING, July 9 (Xinhuanet) -- A brisk black market and competing bureaucracies could undermine the scientific payoff from fossil-rich Liaoning province in northeast China.

    Weak laws, experts say, have failed to halt the illegal excavation and trade in fossils, and scientific research is hindered by confusing local rules, a report in the latest edition of Science magazine says.

    It was less than a decade ago that paleontologists became enthralled with spectacular new fossils from Liaoning province andthe steady stream of finds from these rich beds has given them an impressively detailed picture of life 125 million years ago.

    "You can't find such a rich reserve elsewhere," says Wang Xiaolin, a noted paleontologist with the Institute for Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) under the Chinese Science Academy. Wang has led the institute's fieldwork at Liaoning for the past seven years.

    Fossils from Liaoning have helped explain the ecology of the early Cretaceous period, he adds, as well as resolve the riddle of whether birds evolved from dinosaurs. "It's been a gold mine."

    Unfortunately, many local residents also discovered the "gold mine", which is approximately 400 km from Beijing. Although China's laws prohibit individuals from unearthing or trading valuable fossils, the province does license stores to sell less important fossils.

    "In western Liaoning, each county has an active fossil market" that may contain illicit materials of great value, says Wang. Precious fossils can also be purchased easily on the Internet, he notes.

    Zhao Yibin, director of the fossil administration office within the Liaoning Land and Resources Bureau, insists that "we have basically stopped illegal excavation."

    Recent incidents however appear to back up claims that the problem is getting worse.

    Last month, Australian authorities seized 20 tons of Chinese fossils worth some 3 million US dollars in a raid outside Perth inAustralia. The cache included hundreds of dinosaur eggs from Henanand Guangdong provinces, says John Long of the Western Australian Museum in Perth, along with fishes and dinosaurs from Liaoning.

    IVPP scientists acknowledges that research is also hindered since laws are enforced in an arbitrary and opaque manner. A 2001 provincial law requires applicants to obtain a series of signatures from city, provincial and central authorities, with the Liaoning Land and Resources Bureau at the center.

    Obliged to deal with a different set of administrators, an IVPP team had its application turned down last fall after having set up camps and waiting three months for a permit.

    Another battleground is temporary custody of the fossils. Liaoning administrators generally want the fossils to remain in the province, but IVPP argue that fossils should be kept at their government-funded institute in Beijing for research purposes sinceall fossils belong to the nation.

    In response, Zhao says IVPP has been allowed to keep the fossils it excavated and that fossils with major scientific significance should be kept by scientists.

    IVPP researchers have tried to close these loopholes by urging the government to pass legislation that would curb the negative effects of decentralizing authority over fossils.

    In China, fossils are crucial cultural relics as well as a significant natural resource. The country's current law on the preservation of cultural relics and its criminal code contains only a few words concerning fossil protection. Enditem