The Burgess Shale, located in the Canadian Rockies, is one of the most important fossil fields ever

The Burgess Shale, located in the Canadian Rockies, is one of the most important fossil fields ever discovered. The Burgess shale is famous not just for the unique fossils found within (some are found nowhere else in the world), but also the exceptional preservation of “soft parts”, this type of site is known as a fossil lagerstätten. The image below is Charles Walcott, the man responsible for discovering the Burgess Shale around 1907, and he compiled an extensive list of the fossils found at the site in 1908 (there are different accounts and dates given, but this date is the one used by the Burgess Shale Geoscience Foundation).The geological setting of the Burgess shale. The fossiliferous part of the Burgess shale comprises of dark mudstones which are around 5.5ma- Cambrian in age. The beds were deposited at the base of a vertical cliff estimated to be 160m tall made up of the Cathedral Fm Reef Front. The most accepted consensus is that during a period of intense wave activity and storms the top of the cliff detached and rolled down the side of the cliff in a turbidity current. effectively instantly preserving everything at the base of the cliff. For many years the fossiliferous part of the Burgess shale was thought to have formed in anoxic conditions (no oxygen), however recent geochemical studies, amongst others, have proven that oxygen was present in the sediment. The Taphonomy and biota of the Burgess Shale; The Burgess shale fossils are unique in that many of them are preserved with limbs, exoskeletons, and infilling of the gut. In some rarer fossils there is evidence for muscle and other soft tissue. The preservation of the burgess shale has allowed geoscientists to piece together an entire community and Trilobites, brachiopods, worms, bacteria, cyanobacteria, dinoflagellates, and other protists are all found at the site. Geoconservation; In the 1970’s UNESCO and the Canadian government began to realise the true importance of the Burgess Shale, and it became difficult to collect the fossils for Tourism purposes. In 1984 UNESCO declared the National Park encompassing the Burgess Shale fromation to be a world heritage site, and whilst it is possible to visit the site and view the amazing fossils it is with a guide and no collection of fossils is allowed. To find out more about this amazing fossil find head to any of the links below;http://www.burgess-shale.bc.ca/http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/304http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/cambrian/burgess.htmlhttp://www.geo.ucalgary.ca/~macrae/Burgess_Shale/ -LL -- source link

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