NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Burgess shale

The Burgess Shale is a black shale fossil bed (Lagerstätte) named after Burgess Pass, close to where it was found, high up in the Canadian Rockies in Yoho National Park near the town of Field, British Columbia. Fossils were first found in the Burgess Shale in 1909 by Charles Doolittle Walcott, who returned in the following years to collect additional specimens. Walcott recognized the arthropod fossils were new and unique species, but careful reexaminations showed that many in fact constituted entire new phyla of life, and even today some have proven impossible to classify. The fossils are especially valuable because they include appendages and soft parts that are rarely preserved. Hallucigenia Daugerrotype fossil http://grokhovs2. ... Species (type) Hou & BergstrÃ¶m, 1995 Hallucigenia is an extinct genus of animal found as fossils in the Middle Cambrian-aged Burgess Shale formation of British Columbia, Canada. ... Shale Shale is a fine-grained sedimentary rock whose original constituents were clays or muds. ... LagerstÃ¤tten (German; singular LagerstÃ¤tte; literally place of storage, resting place) are sedimentary deposits that exhibit extraordinary fossil richness or completeness. ... Mount Burgess 2599m (8527ft. ... Ringrose Peak, Lake OHara, British Columbia, Canada The Canadian Rockies comprise the Canadian segment of the North American Rocky Mountains range. ... Natural Bridge Yoho National Park is located in the Canadian Rocky Mountains along the western slope of the Continental Divide in southeastern British Columbia. ... Front entrance to the townsite Field (51Â° 23â€² 48â€³ N 116Â° 29â€² 9â€³ W) is a town of approximately 300 people located in the Kicking Horse River valley of southeastern British Columbia, Canada within the confines of Yoho National Park. ... Three small ammonite fossils, each approximately 1. ... Year 1909 (MCMIX) was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... Charles Doolittle Walcott (March 31, 1850 - February 9, 1927) was an eminent American invertebrate paleontologist. ... Subphyla and Classes Subphylum Trilobitomorpha Trilobita - trilobites (extinct) Subphylum Chelicerata Arachnida - spiders,scorpions, etc. ... Phylum (plural: phyla) is a taxon used in the scientific classification of life. ...

History and significance

The significance of the finds was not realised at the time of discovery; the trilobites found dated the fossils to the Middle Cambrian period, and Charles Walcott simply placed the unusual new species within the phyla known to exist during that period, a process Stephen Jay Gould dubbed "shoehorning" in his book about the Burgess Shale, Wonderful Life. A reinvestigation of the fossils in the 1980s by Harry Blackmore Whittington, Derek Briggs, and Simon Conway Morris of the University of Cambridge, however, revealed that the fauna represented were much more diverse and unusual than Walcott had recognized. Indeed, many of the animals present had bizarre anatomical features and only the sketchiest resemblance to other known animals. Examples include Opabinia with five eyes and a snout like a vacuum cleaner; Aysheaia which bears an extraordinary resemblance to a minor modern phylum—the Onychophora; Nectocaris which is apparently either a crustacean with fins or a vertebrate with a shell; and Hallucigenia which was originally reconstructed as walking on bilaterally symmetrical spines. Conway Morris now reconstructs it as another onychophoran, with the spines on its back. Several poorly understood fossils were found to be body parts of a predatory form known as Anomalocaris. More recent (late 1990s) work by Derek Briggs and Richard Fortey has placed many of the "peculiar" Burgess Shale fossils within the arthropoda, but many animals such as Amiskwia remain enigmatic. Orders Agnostida Redlichiida Corynexochida Lichida Nektaspida? Phacopida Proetida Asaphida Harpetida Ptychopariida Trilobites are extinct arthropods in the class Trilobita. ... The Cambrian is a major division of the geologic timescale that begins about 542 Â± 1. ... It has been suggested that Darwinian Fundamentalism be merged into this article or section. ... Wonderful Life (1989) is a book on evolution by Stephen Jay Gould. ... The 1980s refers to the years of 1980 to 1989. ... Harry Blackmore Whittington (born March 24, 1916) is a noted British paleontologist. ... Derek Briggs is an Irish paleontologist based at Yale University, USA. Whilst at Cambridge University, he worked on the fossils of the Cambrian Burgess Shale of British Columbia, along with Harry Blackmore Whittington and Simon Conway Morris. ... Simon Conway Morris is a British paleontologist. ... The University of Cambridge, located in Cambridge, England, is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world, with a reputation as one of the worlds most prestigious universities. ... The term body form is used to describe a design of the animal form, a blueprint of life. ... Opabinia is a curious animal found in early Cambrian fossil deposits. ... Aysheaia pedunculata is a soft-bodied, caterpillar-shaped organism average body length of 1-6 cm. ... Genera Peripatus . ... Nectocaris is the fossil of an animal of unknown affinity from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale near Field, British Columbia, Canada. ... Classes & Subclasses Branchiopoda Phyllopoda Sarsostraca Remipedia Cephalocarida Maxillopoda Thecostraca Tantulocarida Branchiura Pentastomida Mystacocarida Copepoda Ostracoda Myodocopa Podocopa Malacostraca Phyllocarida Hoplocarida Eumalacostraca The crustaceans (Crustacea) are a large group of arthropods, comprising approximately 52,000 described species [1], and are usually treated as a subphylum [2].They include various familiar animals... Classes and Clades See below Male and female Superb Fairy-wren Vertebrates are members of the subphylum Vertebrata (within the phylum Chordata), specifically, those chordates with backbones or spinal columns. ... Species (type) Hou & BergstrÃ¶m, 1995 Hallucigenia is an extinct genus of animal found as fossils in the Middle Cambrian-aged Burgess Shale formation of British Columbia, Canada. ... Genera Peripatus . ... Species ? Image of the first complete Anomalocaris fossil found, residing in the Royal Ontario Museum Anomalocaris (unusual shrimp) is an extinct genus of anomalocarids, which are, in turn, thought to be closely related to the Arthropoda. ... Professor Richard A. Fortey FRS (born 1946 in London) is a British paleontologist and writer, formerly a Merit Researcher at the Natural History Museum in London. ... Subphyla and Classes Subphylum Trilobitomorpha Trilobita - trilobites (extinct) Subphylum Chelicerata Arachnida - spiders,scorpions, etc. ... Amiskwia is a small, probably gelatinous animal of unknown affinity known from fossils of the Middle Cambrian Burgess shale formation in British Columbia. ...

Gould's Wonderful Life, published in 1989, popularized the Burgess Shale discovery. Gould suggests that the extraordinary diversity of the fossils indicate that life forms at the time were much more diverse than those that survive today and that many of the unique lineages were evolutionary experiments that became extinct. He suggests that this interpretation supports his hypothesis of evolution by punctuated equilibrium. However the widely accepted reclassifiction by Briggs and Fortey contradicts this account and both those authors have criticised Gould for what they believe is a hasty and incomplete analysis used to support Goulds' own ideas and which has since entered the popular public consciousness. This article is about evolution in biology. ... Punctuated equilibrium (or punctuated equilibria) is a theory in evolutionary biology which states that most sexually reproducing species will show little to no evolutionary change throughout their history. ...

The diversity and exotic nature of the Burgess fauna (Middle Cambrian, 505 mya) has caused a great deal of controversy in paleontology with regard to the reasons for and nature of an earlier event in the history of life that has come to be called the Cambrian Explosion (Early Cambrian, 542-530 mya). Paleontology, palaeontology or palÃ¦ontology (see spelling differences) is the study of the history and development of life on Earth, including that of ancient plants and animals, based on the fossil record (evidence of their prehistoric existence as typically preserved in sedimentary rocks). ... The Cambrian explosion is the geologically sudden appearance in the fossil record of the ancestors of familiar animals, starting about 542 million years ago (Mya). ...

Further investigations showed that the Burgess Shale extends for many miles in isolated outcrops and the various faunas are preserved in different places. The deposits appear to represent small areas of muddy ocean bottom that -- from time to time -- slid down the face of a limestone cliff, carrying their fauna and anything unfortunate enough to be swimming by into oxygen-poor waters in the depths. Six distinct faunal zones have been identified in the Burgess Shale. Now that scientists know what to look for, similar deposits have been identified elsewhere with similar faunas. The most important similar deposits are even older turbidite flow deposits created in much the same way as the Burgess shales in Yunnan Province, China. These Maotianshan shales contain fauna quite similar to the Burgess. The worlds oceans as seen from the South Pacific Ocean, before the definition of the Southern Ocean in 2000 For other uses, see Ocean (disambiguation). ... Limey shale overlaid by limestone. ... General Name, Symbol, Number oxygen, O, 8 Chemical series Nonmetals, chalcogens Group, Period, Block 16, 2, p Appearance colorless (gas) very pale blue (liquid) Atomic mass 15. ... USGS image Turbidite geological formations have their origins in turbidity current deposits, deposits from a form of underwater avalanche that are responsible for distributing vast amounts of clastic sediment into the deep ocean. ... (Simplified Chinese: ; Traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: ; literally south of the clouds) is a province of the Peoples Republic of China, located in the far southwestern corner of the country. ... The Maotianshan shale is a lower Cambrian (Atdabanian) rock formation, of ca 522 Mya, now lying exposed in the Yunnan Province of China in the villages of Ercaicun and Chengjiang near the city of Kunming. ...

Due to its location within Yoho National Park, the shale is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, specifically, the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks. Subsequent exploration has found exposures of the shale over a front of several dozen kilometers and has identified at least six fossiliferous lagerstätten within the formation. Image File history File links World_Heritage_logo. ... UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) is a specialized agency of the United Nations established in 1945. ... A UNESCO World Heritage Site is a specific site (such as a forest, mountain, lake, desert, monument, building, complex, or city) that has been nominated and confirmed for inclusion on the list maintained by the international World Heritage Programme administered by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, composed of 21 State... The Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritage Site is located in the Canadian Rockies. ... LagerstÃ¤tten (German, singular: LagerstÃ¤tte, literally: place(s) of storage or resting place(s)) are sedimentary deposits that exhibit extraordinary fossil richness or completeness. ...

Partial species list

Species assigned to a group of extant taxa

Thaumoptilon is a fossil sea pen, an invertebrate from the Cambrian period. ... Families Suborder Sessiliflorae Anthoptilidae Chunellidae Echinoptilidae Funiculinidae Kophobelemnidae Protoptilidae Renillidae Scleroptilidae Stachyptilidae Umbellulidae Veretillidae Suborder Subselliflorae Pennatulidae Pteroeididae Virgulariidae Sea Pens are colonial marine cnidarians belonging to the order Pennatulacea. ... Aysheaia pedunculata is a soft-bodied, caterpillar-shaped organism average body length of 1-6 cm. ... Genera Peripatus . ... Sidneyia is an extinct arthropod known from fossils found in the Cambrian-age Burgess Shale formation of British Columbia. ... Pikaia is an extinct animal known from the Middle Cambrian fossil found near Mount Pika in the Burgess Shale of British Columbia. ... Canadia is an extinct polychaete annelid known from fossils found in the Burgess Shale formation of British Columbia. ... Choia is a fossil demosponge from the Cambrian period. ... Priapulida (priapulid worms, or penis worms) are a phylum of marine worms with an extensible spiny proboscis. ... Canadaspis was a benthic feeder that moved mainly by walking and dug in the mud in search of its food. ... Subphyla and Classes Subphylum Trilobitomorpha Trilobita - trilobites (extinct) Subphylum Chelicerata Arachnida - spiders,scorpions, etc. ... Perspicaris is a fossil arthropod from the Cambrian period. ... Leanchoilia is a fossil arachnomorph arthropod from the Cambrian period. ... Yohoia is a tiny, extinct animal from the Cambrian period that has been found as fossils in the Burgess Shale formation of British Columbia, Canada. ... Species (type) Hou & BergstrÃ¶m, 1995 Hallucigenia is an extinct genus of animal found as fossils in the Middle Cambrian-aged Burgess Shale formation of British Columbia, Canada. ... Genera Peripatus . ... Ctenorhabdotus capulus is an extinct species of ctenophore, known from the Canadian Burgess shale in British Columbia. ... Classes Tentaculata Nuda Ctenophores are jellyfish-like animals commonly called comb jellies, sea gooseberries, sea walnuts, or Venus girdles. ... Fasciculus vesanus is an extinct species of ctenophore, known from the Canadian Burgess Shale of British Columbia. ... Xanioascus canadensis is an extinct ctenophore, known from the Canadian Burgess Shale in British Columbia. ...

Species assigned to a group of extinct taxa

Haplophrentis was a tiny shelled animal which lived in the Cambrian period. ... Hyolitha are enigmatic animals with small conical shells. ... Binomial name Marella splendens Walcott, 1912 Marella splendens is an unusual arthropod known from fossils found in only a single stratum of the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale of British Columbia. ... Olenoides was a trilobite from the Cambrian period. ... Type species Species Naraoia was a genus of trilobites (or trilobite-like arthropods) found in Cambrian strata of the Burgess Shale and the Maotianshan shales LagerstÃ¤tte. ...

Species of uncertain classification

Amiskwia is a small, probably gelatinous animal of unknown affinity known from fossils of the Middle Cambrian Burgess shale formation in British Columbia. ... Species ? Image of the first complete Anomalocaris fossil found, residing in the Royal Ontario Museum Anomalocaris (unusual shrimp) is an extinct genus of anomalocarids, which are, in turn, thought to be closely related to the Arthropoda. ... Dinomischus is a rare fossil animal from the Cambrian period. ... Nectocaris is the fossil of an animal of unknown affinity from the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale near Field, British Columbia, Canada. ... Odontogriphus (literally toothed riddle) is a genus of relatively large animals from the middle Cambrian fossil deposits of the Burgess Shale in British Columbia. ... Opabinia is a curious animal found in early Cambrian fossil deposits. ... Binomial name Orthrozanclus reburrus Morris & Caron, 2007 Orthrozanclus reburrus (Dawn scythe with bristling hair) is a prehistoric sea creature about one centimeter long that had long spikes protruding from its armored body. ... Binomial name Wiwaxia corrugata Walcott, 1911 Wiwaxia corrugata is an extinct species of animal known only from fossils found in Canadas Burgess Shale deposits. ...

Contents

History and significance

Partial species list

Species assigned to a group of extant taxa

Species assigned to a group of extinct taxa

Species of uncertain classification

See also

Further reading

Sources

Contents

History and significance GA_googleFillSlot("encyclopedia_square");

Partial species list

Species assigned to a group of extant taxa

Species assigned to a group of extinct taxa

Species of uncertain classification

See also

Further reading

Sources

History and significance