The Burgess Shale

by H.B. Whittington

In 1909, a discovery was made in southwestern Canada that turned out to be the richest fossil record yet found from the Cambrian Era. Slides of soft mud had covered a single area rather quickly, then hardened to form what is known as the Burgess Shale. Trapped in this formation were hundreds of well-preserved invertebrates that had lived from 500 million to over 600 million years ago. This book contains essays by well known specialists in the archaeological geology field. Many pictures and drawings

168 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1985

Reviews

[Silvio Curtis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A popular book on the Burgess Shale fossils by the head of the research team that discovered its importance, older than The Crucible of Creation and Wonderful Life. Very good at being detailed without being technical. But the other part of good popular science writing is to preserve a sense of wonder, and here I liked the other books better (and of course The Crucible of Creation is more up-to-date as well). For example, what Conway Morris and Gould call "new phyla" or "weird wonders," Whittington refers to as "miscellaneous animals." He does address the macroevolutionary importance a bit in the last chapter.