The Parker Slate is a

geologic formation A geological formation, or simply formation, is a body of rock having a consistent set of physical characteristics ( lithology) that distinguishes it from adjacent bodies of rock, and which occupies a particular position in the layers of rock exp ...

Vermont Vermont () is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, New York (state), New York to the west, and the Provinces and territories of Ca ...

. It preserves

fossils A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

dating back to the

Cambrian The Cambrian ( ) is the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, and the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 51.95 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran period 538.8 Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the Ordov ...

period Period may refer to: Common uses * Period (punctuation) * Era, a length or span of time *Menstruation, commonly referred to as a "period" Arts, entertainment, and media * Period (music), a concept in musical composition * Periodic sentence (o ...

. This formation preserves the first known

lagerstätte A Fossil-Lagerstätte (, from ''Lager'' 'storage, lair' '' Stätte'' 'place'; plural ''Lagerstätten'') is a sedimentary deposit that preserves an exceptionally high amount of palaeontological information. ''Konzentrat-Lagerstätten'' preserv ...

from the Cambrian, 25 years before the Burgess Shale. However, the site was lost from the 1880s (with the few people who found it afterwards never recording soft-bodied fossils) until 2021 when new exceptional material was recovered from this formation. The rarity of fossils seems to be genuine, since the exceptional preservation recorded shows decay was not a large factor.

Chordate A chordate ( ) is a bilaterian animal belonging to the phylum Chordata ( ). All chordates possess, at some point during their larval or adult stages, five distinctive physical characteristics ( synapomorphies) that distinguish them from ot ...

s like ''

Emmonsaspis ''Emmonsaspis'' is a Cambrian chordate, and its fossils were found in the Cambrian-age Parker Slate of Vermont in the late 19th century. Description ''Emmonsaspis'' is a chordate related to '' Metaspriggina'' and '' Nuucichthys''. It grew to ...

'' and hymenocarines like '' Vermontcaris'' are preserved, alongside

amplectobeluid ''Amplectobeluidae'' is a clade of Cambrian radiodonts. It currently includes five definitive genera, ''Amplectobelua'', ''Lyrarapax'', ''Ramskoeldia'', ''Guanshancaris'' and a currently unnamed genus from the lower Cambrian aged Sirius Passet si ...

radiodont Radiodonta is an extinct order of stem-group arthropods that was successful worldwide during the Cambrian period. Radiodonts are distinguished by their distinctive frontal appendages, which are morphologically diverse and were used for a variety ...

s and large quantities of complete

trilobite Trilobites (; meaning "three-lobed entities") are extinction, extinct marine arthropods that form the class (biology), class Trilobita. One of the earliest groups of arthropods to appear in the fossil record, trilobites were among the most succ ...

References

Cambrian geology of Vermont Slate formations Cambrian southern paleotemperate deposits {{Vermont-geologic-formation-stub

See also

References