What was found in the Burgess Shales in Canada?
What was found in the Burgess Shales in Canada?
The Burgess Shale captures a complex marine environment containing a rich diversity of arthropods, miscellaneous worms, sponges, lophophorates, echinoderms, mollusks, priapulids, chordates, hemichordates, annelids, and coelenterates.
What fossils were found in the Burgess Shale?
| Notable Burgess Shale fossils | ||
|---|---|---|
| Genus | Phylum | Class |
| Nectocaris | Mollusca | Unassigned |
| Pikaia | Chordata | Primitive |
| Anomalocaris | Arthropoda | Dinocaridida |
Where is the Burgess Shale found?
Burgess Shale Location Nestled high in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, the Burgess Shale is a record of one of the earliest marine ecosystems, giving a tantalizing glimpse of life as it was over 500 million years ago. The Burgess Shale is located in Yoho National Park, near the town of Field, BC.
Why is the Burgess Shale so important?
The Burgess Shale is a fossil-bearing deposit exposed in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia, Canada. It is famous for the exceptional preservation of the soft parts of its fossils. At 508 million years old (middle Cambrian), it is one of the earliest fossil beds containing soft-part imprints.
Can I go to the Burgess Shale?
The Burgess Shale Walcott Quarry is situated just on the other side of Mt. Field, on the pass between Mt. Field and Mt. It is not possible to visit this site, or the Walcott Quarry, on your own.
How did the Burgess Shale fossil bed form?
Sediment flowing into the sea buried both dead and living animals. As more and more sediment accumulated, the organisms were compressed and fossilized. As this process repeated, the layers of fossils now found in the Burgess Shale were created.
Why is the Burgess Shale special?
The Burgess Shale is a record of the end of the Cambrian Explosion and is unique in its preservation of soft-bodied fossils that are under-represented in other parts of the geologic record (e.g., carbonates).
What is special about the Burgess Shale?
What is special about the fossils of the Burgess Shale?
The fossils of the Burgess Shale are preserved as black carbon films on black shales. Scientists long believed the deposits were formed when areas of muddy ocean floor slid into a lower place creating an anoxic (oxygen-starved) environment that was particularly favorable to fossilization because decay was inhibited.
How the Burgess Shale was preserved?
In addition to the organic films, parts of many Burgess Shale creatures are preserved by phosphatisation: The mid-gut glands of arthropods often host a concentration of high reactivity phosphates, making them the first structures to be preserved; they may be preserved in three dimensions, having been solidified before they could be flattened.
Why is the Burgess Shale important?
The Burgess Shale plays an important role in the discovery of other soft-bodied fossils in other Cambrian localities that are directly comparable. Hence, Burgess Shale is of great importance revealing the distribution of these fossils during the Cambrian period.
Does shale contain fossils?
Fine-grained rock such as shale often contains fossils which are either perfectly preserved or crushed parallel to the bedding plane. Shales can contain vertebrates, invertebrates and plants, or they may contain nothing if environmental conditions during deposition were incapable of supporting life.
