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Burgess Shale
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 old (middle Cambrian), it is one of the earliest fossil beds containing soft-part imprints. The rock unit is a black shale and crops out at a number of localities near the town of Field in Yoho National Park and the Kicking Horse Pass. Another outcrop is in Kootenay National Park 42 km to the south. History and significance The Burgess Shale was discovered by palaeontologist Charles Walcott on 30 August 1909, towards the end of the season's fieldwork. He returned in 1910 with his sons, daughter, and wife, establishing a quarry on the flanks of Fossil Ridge. The significance of soft-bodied preservation, and the range of organisms he recognised as new to science, led him to return to the quarry almost every year until 1924. At that point, aged 74, he had amassed over 65,000 ...
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Ottoia
''Ottoia'' is a stem-group archaeopriapulid worm known from Cambrian fossils. Although priapulid-like worms from various Cambrian deposits are often referred to ''Ottoia'' on spurious grounds, the only clear ''Ottoia'' macrofossils come from the Burgess Shale of British Columbia, which was deposited . Microfossils extend the record of ''Ottoia'' throughout the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin, from the mid- to late- Cambrian. A few fossil finds are also known from China. Morphology ''Ottoia'' specimens are on average 8 centimeters in length. Both length and width show variation with contraction; shorter specimens often being wider than longer ones. The characteristic proboscis of priapulids is present at the anterior, attached to the trunk of the animal, proceeded by the "bursa" at the posterior. The organism's body is bilaterally symmetrical, however, its anterior displays external radial symmetry. Like some other modern invertebrates, a cuticle restricts the size of and pr ...
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Kicking Horse Pass
Kicking Horse Pass (el. ) is a high mountain pass across the Continental Divide of the Americas of the Canadian Rockies on the Alberta–British Columbia border, and lying within Yoho and Banff national parks. Divide Creek forks onto both sides of the Continental Divide. Explorers First Nations had known and used the pass, but it was first explored by Europeans in 1858 by the Palliser Expedition led by Captain John Palliser. It and the adjacent Kicking Horse River were named after James Hector (Hector's Branch Expeditions, 3 August 1858 – 26 May 1859), was kicked by his horse while attempting rescue of another horse that had gone into the river. From Hector's summary, which appears on pages 105–106 of Palliser's diary, Railway A National Historic Site of Canada, the main line of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) was constructed between Lake Louise, Alberta and Field, British Columbia using this route in 1884, in preference to the original survey through the mo ...
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Hallucigenia
''Hallucigenia'' is a genus of Cambrian animal resembling worms, known from articulated fossils in Burgess Shale-type deposits in Canada and China, and from isolated spines around the world. The generic name reflects the type species' unusual appearance and eccentric history of study; when it was erected as a genus, ''H. sparsa'' was reconstructed as an enigmatic animal upside down and back to front. ''Hallucigenia'' was later recognized as a lobopodian, a grade of Paleozoic panarthropods from which the velvet worms, water bears, and arthropods arose. Description ''Hallucigenia'' is a long tubular animal with up to ten pairs of slender legs (lobopods). The first 2 or 3 leg pairs are slender and featureless, while the remaining 7 or 8 pairs each terminate with 1 or 2 claws. Above the trunk region are 7 pairs of rigid conical sclerites (spines) corresponding to the 3rd–9th leg pairs. The trunk is either featureless (''H. sparsa'') or divided by heteronomous annulation ...
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Opabinia
''Opabinia regalis'' is an extinct, stem group arthropod found in the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale Lagerstätte (505 million years ago) of British Columbia. ''Opabinia'' was a soft-bodied animal, measuring up to 7 cm in body length, and its segmented trunk had flaps along the sides and a fan-shaped tail. The head shows unusual features: five eyes, a mouth under the head and facing backwards, and a clawed proboscis that probably passed food to the mouth. ''Opabinia'' probably lived on the seafloor, using the proboscis to seek out small, soft food. Free abstract at Fewer than twenty good specimens have been described; 3 specimens of ''Opabinia'' are known from the Greater Phyllopod bed, where they constitute less than 0.1% of the community. When the first thorough examination of ''Opabinia'' in 1975 revealed its unusual features, it was thought to be unrelated to any known phylum, or perhaps a relative of arthropod and annelid ancestors. However, later studies since late 19 ...
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Body Form
A body plan, ( ), or ground plan is a set of morphological features common to many members of a phylum of animals. The vertebrates share one body plan, while invertebrates have many. This term, usually applied to animals, envisages a "blueprint" encompassing aspects such as symmetry, layers, segmentation, nerve, limb, and gut disposition. Evolutionary developmental biology seeks to explain the origins of diverse body plans. Body plans have historically been considered to have evolved in a flash in the Ediacaran biota; filling the Cambrian explosion with the results, and a more nuanced understanding of animal evolution suggests gradual development of body plans throughout the early Palaeozoic. Recent studies in animals and plants started to investigate whether evolutionary constraints on body plan structures can explain the presence of developmental constraints during embryogenesis such as the phenomenon referred to as phylotypic stage. History Among the pioneering zoologist ...
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University Of Cambridge
, mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Cambridge , type = Public research university , endowment = £7.121 billion (including colleges) , budget = £2.308 billion (excluding colleges) , chancellor = The Lord Sainsbury of Turville , vice_chancellor = Anthony Freeling , students = 24,450 (2020) , undergrad = 12,850 (2020) , postgrad = 11,600 (2020) , city = Cambridge , country = England , campus_type = , sporting_affiliations = The Sporting Blue , colours = Cambridge Blue , website = , logo = University of Cambridge log ...
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Simon Conway Morris
Simon Conway Morris (born 1951) is an English palaeontologist, evolutionary biologist, and astrobiologist known for his study of the fossils of the Burgess Shale and the Cambrian explosion. The results of these discoveries were celebrated in Stephen Jay Gould's 1989 book '' Wonderful Life''. Conway Morris's own book on the subject, ''The Crucible of Creation'' (1998), however, is critical of Gould's presentation and interpretation. Conway Morris, a Christian, holds to theistic views of biological evolution. He has held the Chair of Evolutionary Palaeobiology in the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge since 1995. Biography Early years Conway Morris was born on 6 November 1951. A native of Carshalton, Surrey, he was brought up in London, England. and went on to study geology at Bristol University, achieving a First Class Honours degree. He then moved to Cambridge University and completed a PhD at St John's College under Harry Blackmore Whittington. He is ...
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Derek Briggs
Derek Ernest Gilmor Briggs (born 10 January 1950) is an Irish palaeontologist and taphonomist based at Yale University. Briggs is one of three palaeontologists, along with Harry Blackmore Whittington and Simon Conway Morris, who were key in the reinterpretation of the fossils of the Burgess Shale. He is the Yale University G. Evelyn Hutchinson Professor of Geology and Geophysics, Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology at Yale's Peabody Museum of Natural History, and former Director of the Peabody Museum. Education Briggs was educated at Trinity College Dublin where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Geology in 1972. He went on to the University of Cambridge to work under British palaeontologist Harry Blackmore Whittington. He was awarded a PhD in 1976 on ''Arthropods from the Burgess Shale, Middle Cambrian, Canada''. Research and Career While at the University of Cambridge, Briggs worked on the fossils of the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale of British Columbia along ...
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Harry Blackmore Whittington
Harry Blackmore Whittington FRS (24 March 1916 – 20 June 2010) was a British palaeontologist who made a major contribution to the study of fossils of the Burgess Shale and other Cambrian fauna. His works are largely responsible for the concept of Cambrian explosion, whereby modern animal body plans are explained to originate during a short span of geological period. With initial work on trilobites, his discoveries revealed that these arthropods were the most diversified of all invertebrates during the Cambrian Period. He was responsible for setting the standard for naming and describing the delicate fossils preserved in '' Konservat-Lagerstätten''. After completing his PhD from the University of Birmingham, Whittington spent much of his career out of Britain. He started his professional career at the University of Rangoon, Burma. Then he moved to China to teach at Ginling Women's College. After the end of World War II, he moved to Harvard University to become Professor of ...
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Trilobite
Trilobites (; meaning "three lobes") are extinct marine arthropods that form the class Trilobita. Trilobites form one of the earliest-known groups of arthropods. The first appearance of trilobites in the fossil record defines the base of the Atdabanian stage of the Early Cambrian period () and they flourished throughout the lower Paleozoic before slipping into a long decline, when, during the Devonian, all trilobite orders except the Proetida died out. The last extant trilobites finally disappeared in the mass extinction at the end of the Permian about 252 million years ago. Trilobites were among the most successful of all early animals, existing in oceans for almost 270 million years, with over 22,000 species having been described. By the time trilobites first appeared in the fossil record, they were already highly diversified and geographically dispersed. Because trilobites had wide diversity and an easily fossilized exoskeleton, they left an extensive fossil record. The st ...
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Geological Survey Of Canada
The Geological Survey of Canada (GSC; french: Commission géologique du Canada (CGC)) is a Canadian federal government agency responsible for performing geological surveys of the country, developing Canada's natural resources and protecting the environment. A branch of the Earth Sciences Sector of Natural Resources Canada, the GSC is the country's oldest scientific agency and was one of its first government organizations. History In September 1841, the Province of Canada legislature passed a resolution that authorized the sum of £1,500 sterling be granted to the government for the estimated expense of performing a geological survey of the province. In 1842, the Geological Survey of Canada was formed to fulfill this request.Christy Vodden (1992)No Stone Unturned: The First 150 years of the Geological Survey of Canada Geological Survey of Canada Web site William Edmond Logan was in Montreal at the time and made it known that he was interested in participating in this survey. ...
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Walcott Quarry
The Walcott Quarry is the most famous quarry of the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale, located in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia, bearing the Phyllopod bed The Phyllopod bed, designated by USNM locality number 35k, is the most famous fossil-bearing member of the Burgess Shale fossil ''Lagerstätte''. It was quarried by Charles Walcott from 1911–1917 (and later named Walcott Quarry), and was t ...s. This lies at the base of the Walcott Quarry member, on a ridge between Wapta Mountain and Mount Field, and three other quarries – the Raymond, UE and EZ – lie above it. The quarry's proximity to the Cathedral escarpment led to the preservation of spectacular fossils. History After locating soft-bodied fossils in loose fragments of rock in 1907, the Phyllopod bed was located as a source for the fragments' origins by the Walcotts in 1910. The Walcott quarry was opened the subsequent year, and extensive quarrying was performed in field seasons until 1913 ...
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