Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
the confluence of the Yoho and Kicking Horse Rivers
BURGESS SHALE
High on the rocky slopes above Mount Field is a layer of sedimentary rock known as
the Burgess Shale, which contains what are considered to be the world's finest fossils
from the Cambrian Period. The site is famous worldwide because it has unraveled
the mysteries of a major stage of evolution.
In 1909, Smithsonian Institute paleontologist Charles Walcott was leading a pack
train along the west slope of Mount Field, on the opposite side of the valley from
the newly completed Spiral Tunnel, when he stumbled across these fossil beds. En-
cased in the shale, the fossils here are of marine invertebrates about 510 million
years old. Generally, fossils are the remains of vertebrates, but at this site some freak
event—probably a mudslide—suddenly buried thousands of soft-bodied animals (in-
vertebrates), preserving them by keeping out the oxygen that would have decayed
their delicate bodies. Walcott excavated an estimated 65,000 specimens from the site.
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