Burgess Shale

Burgess Shale

The Burgess Shale Formation, located in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia, is one of the world's most celebrated fossil fields, and the best of its kind. It is famous for the exceptional preservation of the soft parts of its fossils. At 505 million years (Middle Cambrian) old it is one of the earliest fossil beds containing the imprints of soft-parts.

The rock unit is a black shale, and crops out at a number of localities near the town of Field in Yoho National Park.

Read more about Burgess Shale:  History and Significance, Geological Setting, Stratigraphy, Taphonomy and Diagenesis, Biota, Working With The Burgess Shale

Famous quotes containing the word burgess:

    Violence among young people ... is an aspect of their desire to create. They don’t know how to use their energy creatively so they do the opposite and destroy.
    —Anthony Burgess (b. 1917)