The Burgess Shale By Charles D. Walcott

Found in the Appalachian Region, the Juniata Formation extends from central-southern Pennsylvania to Tennessee (Davies 2010). Though the thickness of the Juniata Formation is far from constant across its lateral extent, it is approximately 2000 feet thick in northern Pennsylvannia and thins towards the southwest (Crowder 1980). Named for the Juniata River running through southern Pennsylvania, this formation consists of sediments from the Taconic Orogeny in the late Ordovician period (Crowder 1980). Figure one displays the characteristic layers of alternating red sandstones and shales, which are divided into three distinct units (Darton

Explain why the author and his colleagues chose to focus on 375 million year old rocks in their search for fossils. Be sure to include the types of rocks and their location during their paleontology work in 2004.

The first chapter of the book discusses the way we can use fossil records to study the biological world. Fossils are one of the major lines of evidence we use to understand ourselves. Surprisingly, we are able to discover them with a high amount of precision and predictability. In particular, field paleontologists have it easier than it has ever been before due to the current information age. The physical hunt for important fossils, however, is much like it has always been. Three factors limiting the number of useful fossil sites include rock age, type (whether or not it can preserve fossils), and number of exposed rocks. So, it takes a bit of luck to reliably find fossils. Thankfully, rock

The Britannia Mines has played such a major role in the building blocks of British Columbia’s economic development and early history. Behind the unforgotten community that once flourished with 60,000 miners of different races and religions, lies a rich history that captures the hearts of many who pass by one of the most successful copper sites of its time. With that being said, the legend behind the discovery of affluent minerals in Britannia Mines is by a doctor who was searching for gold in the year, 1888. After many failed attempts to set up a mining industry, the Britannia Mine and Smelting Company Ltd. took interest in this discovery and developed operation systems and communities. The Britannia Mines in the 1920s became such a successful

If you’re anything like me and you see this painting of “The Rock” by Peter Blume (1944), you may wonder what in the world is going on in the picture. At our first look, we see the obvious; the enormous rock Peter Blume placed right in the center. After looking at the scenery going on, I think that the placement and size of the rock is proportioned that way as a sign of it being significant. The way I see it, the monument plays an important role when it comes down to determining why there are so many things going on at once in the painting. With the comparison of the details of the hard working people to the broken rock, half built building, and the smoke, I will establish the reasons of why this picture shows both destruction and loyalty- and the ways destruction in this painting also results in uniting the people working.

Just last year, some researchers stated that the extinct aquatic animal, the ‘Tully Monster’ was a vertebrate, possibly a relative of today’s lampreys. Like a mismatched puzzle, the Tully monster lacks some vertebrate pieces and has others that are the wrong shape, researchers and colleagues report in the March issue of Palaeontology. (Palaeontology includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environment, their paleoecology).

These Paleozoic rocks are steeply plunging sandstones and siltstones, with a little event of limestone at Lilydale - the Early Devonian Lilydale Limestone. The Silurian rocks were stored in profound water, while the Devonian rocks, which are exceptionally fossiliferous, appear to have been stored in shallower water. These Silurian and Devonian rocks were folded into a progression of anticlines

often will people think of a nautilus, an organism that is a distant cousin of cuttlefish and squid. These organisms have been dubbed "living fossils" and have been on earth for about 500 million years. The nautilus tends to in front of coral reefs, deep in the ocean. The long existence of the nautilus has allowed its mesmerizing spiral shell to be embedded in some rocks and has become a part of the fossil record.

The author and his colleagues chose to focus on 375 million year old rocks in their search for fossils because amphibians that look dissimilar to fish were discovered in 365 million year old rocks, while fish without amphibian characteristics were discovered in 385 million year old rocks. Thus, it is possible that the evolutionary intermediary, or the “missing link” between fish and amphibians, would be discovered in 375 million year old rocks, between the two time periods. The rocks examined were sedimentary in composition, as the gradual and relatively gentle formation of sedimentary rock under conditions of mild pressure and low heat are conducive to the fossilization of animal remains. Sedimentary rock is also often formed in rivers and seas, where animals are likely to live. This site provides a resource that describes means by which fossils are formed and how the fossil record may be interpreted, and shows some examples of fossils demonstrating evolution through geological periods: http://www.fossilmuseum.net/fossilrecord.htm. In 2004, Shubin and his colleagues were looking for fossils on Ellesmere Island, in northern Canada. This location was chosen because of its lack of human development, as well as of obstructing natural formations and life forms such as trees, which

During the Pre-Cambrian era specifically the Proterozoic periods’ there was numerous orogenic events that were crucial in shaping the Pre-Cambrian craton. The first major orogenic event in the early part of the Proterozoic was the Penokean orogeny, which is shown in the record by major deformations and some high-grade metamorphic rocks, and it also includes some igneous rocks in the form of intrusions. These were followed by andesitic volcanism over the entire region, and the appearance of granite. Next, there was some low-grade metamorphism and the appearances of plutons over the area in the Middle Proterozoic. Rocks that were involved with the Penokean orogenic event are shown in the Superior province on top of the basement rock, and they

The Illinois Basin lies across Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky, and it has a oval like structural depression in southeastern Illinois. The Illinois Basin is classified as an intracratonic basin (Bois and Pelet 1982). The Illinois Basin began as a rift complex which eventually failed, the New Madrid fault is associated with this rifting (Hasenmueller and Comer 1994). The depositional thickness of the New Albany Shale was strongly affected by the regional down-warping in southeastern Illinois (Lineback 1980). The Illinois basin is separated from the Michigan basin by the Kankakee arch, which is located primarily in Indiana (Nelson 1995). To the South East lies the Cincinnati arch (Nelson 1995). In central and

Before we get started, I guess we should actually distinguish, ‘What IS the Burgess Shale?’ Well, it is said to be a “shrouded legend” deep in the Canadian Rockies discovered in the early 1900s by Charles D. Walcott, notorious Smithsonian Secretary (Adler 2013). According to Haug, Caron, and Haug in their research article ‘Demecology in the Cambrian: Synchronized Molting in Arthropods from the Burgess Shale’ the Burgess is “arguably the best-known Konservat-Lagerstätte”. While the Burgess Shale is primarily known for the intricate preservation of soft-bodied creatures dating from the early Cambrian Period (Haug, Caron, Haug 2013); furthermore, what seems to make this specific site so special is the fact that not only the soft parts of

We studied at a cold windy place. I could feel the wind blowing through my hair. The smell of seaweed filled my nose. The day we went it was 46˚ and it was 12 o'clock on Tuesday October 25 2016. There were a lot of rocks and freezing water surrounding the rocks. On top of the rocks were seaweed and kelp which was a great hiding place for a crab, which is what we were looking for. We were looking for a rock crab which is very hard to find. The place we went to look for the rock crab is our local beach Kettle Cove, Cape Elizabeth maine. We searched for a very long time and it was hard picking up rocks. I have a scrape from a barnacle on my wrist to prove it. We found a lot of green crabs and asian shores but no rock crab though I noticed that

My outside source for questions 3 and 4 is a journal by Pat Shipman titled Fossils. This journal was published in The New Scientist Vol. 215, Issue 2876, p. 8-16.

These techniques led to the discovery of the boundary between the two eras. A single thin layer of clay found within predominantly limestone rocks established this. By comparing the marine life found in, above, and below the clay, the marine life, like the dinosaurs, had been terribly affected by the extinction event. The percentage of life in the upper layers was dramatically lower than that in the lower. This was far more compelling than what was suggested by dinosaur’s fossils.