Where is burgess shale located

Dawn of Life Gallery — Help Support! For a full list of Burgess Shale stories, see "Publications" below. A profound curiosity about fossils during his childhood led Jean-Bernard Caron to collect and curate his own personal fossil collection in his native France. By the age of 10, he knew he wanted to become a professional palaeontologist. As a teenager, he often joined various professional field crews across Europe for summer field expeditions collecting fossils, and the experience gained as a volunteer field assistant led to an invitation from Desmond Collins, then Curator of Invertebrate Palaeontology at the ROM, to join his field crew at the famous Burgess Shale fossil deposit in British Columbia in This was his first visit to Canada, and he returned to the Burgess Shale as a ROM volunteer for the following two summer field seasons.

His Master's thesis dealt with Banffia constricta , one of the most bizarre animals known from the Burgess Shale. This study was followed by a PhD on the taphonomy and paleoecology of the Burgess Shale community.

After being awarded a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council post-doctoral fellowship Government of Canada , he joined the ROM as Associate Curator of Invertebrate Paleontology in early , thus finally fulfilling his long-standing childhood dream.

At present, his main responsibilities are to curate and interpret fossils from the very large ROM Burgess Shale collection as well as to continue fieldwork activities. He also studies fossils from other Burgess Shale-type deposits, particularly in China. This bilingual website has received over 2.

See also Focus on Research page. Jean-Bernard was the recipient of the Pikaia award from the Canadian Geological Association in recognition of his contribution to the profile of Canadian paleontology through his research. The nomination citation PDF praised him as "an exceptionally innovative and productive young paleontologist who shows promise for continuing excellence in Canadian paleontological research.

Google scholar profile, with list of citations, click here. The following are some of the pictures from our visit, along with some comments on the geology of the area. Click on the small image to see the full-sized image. Other Burgess Shale resources, including links to other websites, are listed at the bottom of the page.

The peak in the background is Mt. This is another view of the Walcott Quarry, looking in the opposite direction, with Mt. Stephen in the distance on the other side of the Kicking Horse Valley. The view directly out from the quarry face is towards Emerald Lake. The lake's colour is a result of glacial flour - finely ground rock fragments which reflect sunlight in the lake water.

While we were at the quarry there was a paleontological crew from the Tyrell Museum in Alberta camped within the flat clearing a few hundred metres below. One of the more common of the Burgess Shale organisms was this burrowing priapulid worm Ottoia.

Ottoia lived in the mud with its head near to the surface, and was ready to reach out and grab any small creatures crawling by. There were numerous corals living on the floor of the Burgess Shale seas. This one is known as Vauxia. There were also numerous animals with both single and double shells, including brachiopods and clams. This single-shell limpet-like animal is known as Scenella. One of the best known, and the most abundant of the Burgess Shale creatures is the arthropod Marella.

So many Marella specimens have been taken out that we didn't see many examples, so this one is not that clear. Leanchoilia is one of the more curious of the Burgess Shale creatures. Although this is not a very good specimen, you can see the strange appendages that extend out from the front of his head to the right.

Old — Over five hundred million years old! Way older than dinosaurs! Walcott Quarry. Few places have contributed as much to our understanding of the origins of animals on the planet. The Burgess Shale is one of the rare locations in the world where both hard body parts and soft tissues have been fossilized. This rare and exquisite preservation has granted scientists the unusual opportunity to view an organism in its entirety with remarkable clarity providing a window to the distant past and an insight on how these amazing creatures lived.

Using advanced imaging techniques scientists have shown that nervous systems, hearts, livers, and eggs have all been preserved, providing a deeper understanding of the evolution of early life.