Burgess Shale

B.ED. SCIENCE WITH SPECIALISATION IN BIOLOGY   Table of Contents The Burgess Shale Fauna 3 Introduction 3 History of Discovery 3 Preservation Bias 4 Major Fossils 4 Concluding remarks: 7 References: 8 The Burgess Shale Fauna Introduction The Burgess Shale Fauna is a fauna that was constructed based on a group of fossils that were initially found, in the Burgess Shale area in the Canadian Rockies (Gould, 1989). They are a very important group of fossils as “modern multicellular

Burgess Shale The Burgess Shale was first discovered in 1909 by a Paleontologist named Charles Walcott and is believed to be over 500 million years ago in Middle Cambrian. This geological formation was first found near a mountain by the name of Mount Burgess, for which it was named after, in Canada. Similar formations have been uncovered in China, Europe, USA and many other places around the world. The Burgess Shale is one of the most important of fossil type formations due to the fact that they

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

Ashley Goosic The Burgess Shale The Burgess Shale, located in Yoho National Park, British Columbia, was discovered by Charles D. Walcott in 1909. Walcott spent 18 years collecting and classifying the fossils located at this site. The Shale was formed about 530 million years ago, in the Cambrian Period. Most Cambrian rocks contain fossils of trilobite shells, cap-shaped or flattened shells, and brachiopods (Whittington, 1985). When Walcott went looking for North American Cambrian fossils in

deposits on certain horizons in which an exceptionally large number of fossil have been preserved. These usually occur when there has been a low rate of sedimentation over a time period (Clarkson, 1998). Discovered by Charles Walcott in 1909, The Burgess Shale is an example of conservation Lagerstätte (Briggs, 2014). Dating back to 505 million years ago, it provides fossils of marine organisms dating back to the middle Cambrian period, not long after the Cambrian explosion, a period of time when organisms

THE TAPHONOMY AND PHYLOGENETIC CLASSIFICATION OF THE BURGESS SHALE FAUNA. INTRODUCTION: The Burgess Shale Phyllopod bed was discovered in the early 1900’s. This discovery was monumental in the field of geology. The Lagerstatten and its immaculate fossil fauna introduced geologists to the lost world of a Middle Cambrian sea bed. The unique imprint fossils of bizarre organisms like Pikaia, and Anomalocaris perplexed scientists for over a century. This was because of their preservation

March 2017 Uncovering the Mystery that is Hallucigenia For many years, little was known about the strange creature that is Hallucigenia sparsa. It wasn’t until Dr. Simon Conway Morris discovered its 508 million-year-old fossil in a part of the Burgess Shale Formation in Canada that we were able to discern that Hallucigenia isn’t as mysterious as once thought (Zimmer p. D4). In 1977, Dr. Conway Morris wasn’t the first to discover the animal, but he was oddly enough the first to publish an account of

The Wilberns formation has never been studied in the subsurface. Barnes & Bell performed the last encompassing study of the Wilberns in 1977 and the analysis was all performed on outcropping surface rocks. Modern techniques and understanding of carbonate and clastic petrology and sub-surface mineral core will help to shed new light on the very complex Wilberns Formation. Information garnered from this new study could help to better understand Cambrian aged hydrocarbon reservoirs and source rocks

During the Paleozoic brachiopods were a highly diverse and abundant phylum, dominating the fauna and subsequently the fossil record for millions of years (Topper). Brachiopods have two valves with bilateral symmetry and are sessile benthic marine organisms that obtain energy through filter feeding by means of a structure called a lophophore. They occupied various marine ecological niches throughout the Paleozoic, with the shell morphology generally indicating the life habit of the organism (I just

forces causing repeated uplifting of the mountains. When it comes to the geologic history of the park about 1.8 to 2 million years ago rocks were deposited in an ancient sea. These rocks were originally siltstone, some volcanic rocks, sandstone, and shale. Eventually these rocks, which are sedimentary rocks, were caught in a collision zone between tectonic plates and some of Earth’s