This is a list of the biota of the Burgess Shale, a Cambrian lagerstätte located in Yoho National Park in Canada.
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 508 million years old (middle Cambrian), it is one of the earliest fossil beds containing soft-part imprints. During the Cambrian, the ecosystem of the Burgess Shale sat under 100 to 300 metres (330 to 1000 feet) of water at the base of a submarine canyon known as the Cathedral Escarpment, which today is a part of the Canadian Rockies. The ecosystem would have sat in dimly lit water, most likely at the edge, or in the Mesopelagic zone. The ecosystem was preserved by rapid mudslides that quickly buried organisms near, or on the seafloor, which helps explain the rarity of nektonic organisms at the site. The shale would’ve supported unique environments like brine pools that could’ve also helped to preserve the fossils. Notable areas that expose the Burgess Shale include the Walcott Quarry, Marble Canyon, Stephen Formation, Tulip beds, Stanley Glacier, the Trilobite Beds and the Cathedral Formation. With each site occupying a varying depth, and distance from the base of the escarpments.[1][2][3][4][5]
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
:1was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Slind, O.L., Andrews, G.D., Murray, D.L., Norford, B.S., Paterson, D.F., Salas, C.J., and Tawadros, E.E., Canadian Society of Petroleum Geologists and Alberta Geological Survey (1994). "The Geological Atlas of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin (Mossop, G.D. and Shetsen, I., compilers), Chapter 8: Middle Cambrian and Early Ordovician Strata of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin". Archived from the original on 2016-07-01. Retrieved 2018-07-13.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Caron, J. -B.; Gaines, R. R.; Mangano, M. G.; Streng, M.; Daley, A. C. (2010). "A new Burgess Shale-type assemblage from the "thin" Stephen Formation of the southern Canadian Rockies". Geology. 38 (9): 811–814. Bibcode:2010Geo....38..811C. doi:10.1130/G31080.1. Archived from the original on 2023-12-07. Retrieved 2024-01-22.
- ^ Fletcher, T. P.; Collins, D. (1998). "The Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale and its relationship to the Stephen Formation in the southern Canadian Rocky Mountains". Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences. 35 (4): 413–436. Bibcode:1998CaJES..35..413F. doi:10.1139/cjes-35-4-413.
- ^ McCormick, Cole A.; Corlett, Hilary; Roberts, Nick M. W.; Johnston, Paul A.; Collom, Christopher J.; Stacey, Jack; Koeshidayatullah, Ardiansyah; Hollis, Cathy (2024-06-13). "U-Pb geochronology reveals that hydrothermal dolomitization was coeval to the deposition of the Burgess Shale lagerstätte". Communications Earth & Environment. 5 (1): 318. Bibcode:2024ComEE...5..318M. doi:10.1038/s43247-024-01429-0. ISSN 2662-4435.