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Burgess Shale


BURGESS SHALE, a quarry in the ROCKY MTS high above FIELD in YOHO NATIONAL PARK, contains one of the most important fossil finds in history. Discovered by the American palaeontologist Charles Walcott in 1909, the shale contains the FOSSILS of 140 species of marine invertebrates, many of them soft-bodied and most previously unknown. The remains of the small creatures were embedded in the silt on the floor of an ancient sea 530 million years ago. Named for nearby Burgess Pass, the shale is about a city block long and 3 m high. It and the surrounding Rocky Mts national parks were named WORLD HERITAGE SITES by UNESCO in 1980.
Reading: Stephen Jay Gould, Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History, 1989.