The Burgess Shale Formation, located in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia, is one of the world's most celebrated fossil fields,[2] and the best of its kind.[3] It is famous for the exceptional preservation of the soft parts of its fossils. At 505 million years (Middle Cambrian) old[4] 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.
The Burgess Shale was discovered by palaeontologist Charles Walcott in 1909, towards the end of the season's fieldwork.[5] 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.
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what is burgess shale? what is the significance of this discovery to evolutionary biology
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