The Walcott Quarry  Charles Walcott's main collection site, enlarged by excavation of the Royal Ontario Museum. View to the Northwest with Mount Wapta in the upper left corner. The escarpment beyond the edge of the quarry on the left is formed by the contact between dark shales and light-colored dolomites of the Stephen Formation.  Copyright © 1995 by Andrew MacRae.

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The fossiliferous strata of the Burgess Shale represent a so-called Lagerstatten deposit, where shallow dwelling marine animals were swept to a deeper site of the shelf and buried by slumps, rapidly and generally alive. This rapid burial prevented from decay of the soft parts. It is thus responsible for the preservation of the entire fauna whereas a usual fossil assemblage presents only part of the original biota. 

Today, we know of about 125 different genera from the Burgess Shale - the most comprehensive assemblage known from any Paleozoic locality. The spectrum of organisms reaches from Cyanobacteria and green and red algae over sponges, brachiopods, priapulids, annelids, many different arthropod groups, echinoderms and problematic skleritome-bearing animals to one of the first chordates. Famous examples of strange animals are Opabinia, Yohoia, Hallucigenia, and Pikaia. Anomalocaris was identified as one of the first great predators and perhaps the largest animal in the Cambrian seas. 

Charles Walcott interpreted all of his findings as belonging to modern phyla. A revival of the Burgess Shale studies by Harry Whittington and his research group starting in the 1970s have radically changed this view. These studies have shown that many of the organisms had strange and previously unknown morphologies and lack modern analogues. They represent a large number of higher taxa that are only known from the Cambrian fossil archives and probably became extinct before the end of the Cambrian - early experiments of nature that for unperceptible reasons failed to survive the tail of the Cambrian Explosion. The insight won from the Burgess Shale fauna was a major argument not only for a maximal initial proliferation of the metazoan animals (the so-called Cambrian Explosion) but also for their pronounced decimation after the outburst of so many anatomical designs.

The Burgess Shale fauna has now become popular, particularly through S. J. Gould's best-seller "Wonderful Life", a highly recommendable introduction. The locality has been declared a World Heritage. 

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	Anomalocaris, isolated frontal appendage of the largest Burgess Shale animal and perhaps the largest Cambrian animal. Such an appendage was first described and interpreted as an incomplete body of a shrimp-like arthropod. Other fossil remains, originally interpreted as jellyfish and remains of unknown affinities, were finally combined with this type of limb, and the discovery of complete specimens finally confirmed the reconstruction.  Copyright © 1995 by Andrew MacRae.
	Marrella splendens Walcott, 1912, called the "lace crab" by Walcott. The problematic arthropod had two pairs of antennae and cannot be accomodated in any of the modern arthropod groups. Marella is the most abundant of the Burgess Shale animals (with more than 15,000 specimens found in the Walcott Quarry). Specimen found in the Walcott Quarry.  Copyright © 1995 by Andrew MacRae.
	Vauxia gracilenta Walcott, 1920. The most common sponge in the Burgess Shale. The complex branching of this demosponge often creates a bushlike appearance. Specimen found in the Walcott Quarry.  Copyright © 1995 by Andrew MacRae.
	Anomalocaris again: Charles.D. Walcott excavated at Burgess Pass an animal remain which he called Peytoia nathorsti and which he believed was a Cnidarian, or jellyfish.  Early reconstruction show it floating like a pineapple ring in the water.  Peytoia was finally shown to represent a mouthpart of Anomalocaris. Coyright © 1998 by G. Geyer

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Andrew MacRae kindly provided most of the photos on this side. Here is a link to his Burgess Shale page.

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Links to Burgess Shale information 

(unordered and of extremely differing scientific significance, but still worth to browse)

• Burgess Shale fossils on the University of Calgary server
• Burgess Shale fossils of the Burgess Shale website
• Burgess Shale tour of the Hooper Virtual Natural History Museum, Carleton University
• An introduction to the Burgess Shale by Pamela Gore, Georgia Perimeter College, with some nice photographs
• Burgess Shale Fossil Sampler of the U.S. National Museum of Natural History (Washington, D.C.)
• Notes and photos from a trip by members of the CREWES organization at the University of Calgary 
• Yoho National Park 
• Yoho N. P. Burgess Shale information 
• BC Museums Association: Yoho-Burgess Shale Research Foundation 
• Waptia specimen on Geology January, 1996 cover 
• S. J. Gould's "Wonderful Life", a book review 
• Burgess Shale fauna, reconstructions by R. A. Esparrago, Jr. 
• "The Burgess Shale Project" at ScienceWeb 
• raytraced 3D reconstructions of Burgess Shale fauna at R. Hammond's Paleo-Models homepage 
• Hidemichi Fujitani's 3D Burgess Shale models 
• "The Burgess Shale", a musical composition by Rand Steiger 

Further reading