The first fossil discoveries in the area of the Burgess Shale were made on Mount Stephen in the late 19th century. Exactly who made the first discovery may never be resolved … there are conflicting claims from a geologist, Richard McConnell, and an astronomer, Otto Klotz. Nevertheless, the early finds set the stage for the later discovery of the Burgess Shale.
The Trilobite Beds are named after the millions of trilobite fossils found on the slopes of Mount Stephen, about 5 km (3.1 miles) southeast of the Burgess Shale, between Wapta Mountain and Mount Field. The discovery and first descriptions of fossils from this location near the end of the 19th century played a pivotal role in attracting Charles Walcott to the area, first in 1907 and again in 1909 when he discovered the Burgess Shale.
The discoverer of the “Fossil Beds” (as they were commonly known) may never be known
A geologist for the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) named Richard McConnell is often credited with making the first collection of fossils from this location on September 13, 1886 – after labourers working in the nearby village of Field told McConnell about “stone bugs” (trilobites) they had seen on the slopes of Mount Stephen.
Other GSC geologists had already collected fossils from Mount Stephen along the CPR construction line, but not specifically from the soon-to-be-famous beds.
Ogygopsis klotzi from the Fossil Beds and reverse of slab showing original label. © GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. PHOTO: JEAN-BERNARD CARON
Following McConnell’s initial visit, additional collections were made at the site by Survey geologists. The most significant of these was perhaps one made by Henri-Marc Ami five years later, in 1891.
That same year Otto Klotz, an astronomer working for the Department of the Interior along the railway at the time, acquired a separate collection from the Fossil Beds. These apparently were collected by his cook during the summer of 1886.
Ogygopsis klotzi collected by Klotz’s cook from the Fossil Beds and reverse of slab showing original label. © UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN MUSEUM OF PALEONTOLOGY. PHOTO: JEAN-BERNARD CARON
Klotz was using astronomical observations to determine precise longitude co-ordinates for the railway. As part of his work he also accurately determined the heights of peaks such as Mount Burgess – which he named in 1886 for Alexander MacKinnon Burgess, Deputy Minister of the Interior at the time.
Klotz, best known for becoming Canada’s first Dominion Astronomer in 1916, sent his fossil collection to Professor Carl Rominger, an acquaintance and geologist at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, where Klotz had graduated in 1872. (Klotz’s collection is now at the University of Michigan Museum of Paleontology.) It did not take long for Rominger to publish a cursory account of these fossils in an 1887 essay entitled “Description of primordial fossils from Mount Stephens [Mount Stephen today], N.W. Territory of Canada”. In this, he named Klotz as the discoverer of the Fossil Beds – an assertion quickly disputed by McConnell.
Fossils from Mount Stephen illustrated by Rominger (1887)
GSC Geologist Robert McConnell published his report on the trilobites in 1887, catching the attention of Charles Walcott. Walcott, who would go on to discover and name the Burgess Shale, was a prominent American geologist who had a life-long interest in trilobites. However, it would be another 20 years before he would make his first visit to the area (in 1907).
An employee of the US Geological Survey at the time, Walcott obtained specimens from both the McConnell/GSC (Geological Survey of Canada) collection and the Otto Klotz collection, finally concluding the Mount Stephen fossils were of Middle Cambrian age.
Walcott corresponded with the GSC on a regular basis at the time, helping identify many specimens (for Survey paleontologist Henri-Marc Ami, in particular) and providing his expertise on the stratigraphy of the area.
Left, fossil list from the Fossil Beds on Mount Stephen with the two right columns bearing the notations CDW (for Charles Doolittle Walcott) and HMA (for Henri-Marc Ami) dated 1892. Right, stratigraphic map on reverse showing Mount Stephen and Mount Field and sketches of fossils. © GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF CANADA. PHOTOS: JEAN-BERNARD CARON
A few years later, even as Walcott was helping to identify the Canadian finds, several of McConnell’s and Ami’s specimens were studied by Joseph Whiteaves, the GSC‘s chief palaeontologist in Ottawa.
Anomalocaris canadensis collected by Ami from the Fossil Beds and reverse of slab showing original label. © Geological Survey of Canada. Photos: Jean-Bernard Caron
In a historically important paper published in 1892, Whiteaves described a strange Mount Stephen fossil as resembling a kind of headless shrimp with poorly preserved appendages. Because of the unusual pointed shape of the supposed ventral appendages and position of spines near the rear end of the animal, Whiteaves named it Anomalocaris canadensis. The genus name “Anomalocaris” meant “unlike other shrimps” and the species name “canadensis” referred to the country of origin.
This species represents one of the most spectacular animals from the Burgess Shale. While it is now interpreted as the largest predatory arthropod in the Cambrian seas, the story of its description is a series of misinterpretations and errors.
In 1887, following the 67th Annual Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, held in Toronto, a special cross-Canada rail excursion allowed delegates to experience the spectacular geology and palaeontology of western Canada. The trip was organized by Byron Edmund Walker, an influential Toronto banker and amateur palaeontologist — and it included a visit to the Mount Stephen Fossil Beds, where many participants, including Walker, made collections.
Walker loaned his collection of fossils from Mount Stephen to George F. Matthew, an eminent Canadian authority on Cambrian fossils.
In 1904, Walker donated his important fossil collection (including the Mount Stephen material) to the University of Toronto’s Geological Museum, which in 1913 became the core of the newly-founded Royal Ontario Museum of Palaeontology, under the directorship of William Arthur Parks. Walker, who had been knighted by King George V in 1910, was co-founder of the ROM and first Chair of the Board of Trustees.
The name most commonly associated with the Burgess Shale is probably Charles Doolittle Walcott (1850-1927). A specialist on Cambrian trilobites and brachiopods, he published hundreds of papers during his long and successful career. One of his greatest contributions to science came with his discovery of the Burgess Shale in 1909.
Charles Doolittle Walcott was a towering figure in the history of American science at the turn of the 20th century. He was director of the United States Geological Survey (1894-1907), Secretary of the Carnegie Institution of Washington (1902-1905), Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution (1907-1927), president of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1923) and the National Academy of Science (1917-1922), and even acted as a science advisor to Theodore Roosevelt.
Despite his many duties, Walcott remained an active field geologist and paleontologist until his death in 1927. He spent every field season from 1907 to 1925 working at least part of each summer in the Canadian Rockies – often accompanied by his family, including his second wife Helena (from 1907 to 1910), his third wife Mary (from 1914 to 1925), and one or more of his four children (until 1918).
Walcott’s interest in the Canadian Rockies began as early as 1886, when fossils were discovered on Mount Stephen in the Fossil Beds (now called the Trilobite Beds). He published two papers (in 1887 and 1888) based on fossils from this locality that had been sent to him by colleagues.
Walcott finally managed to visit the Trilobite Beds in the summer of 1907, but only for a short time. His main aim during the five-week field season was geological: to study the broader stratigraphy of various Cambrian sections in the area, including on Mount Stephen. Walcott spent only one day (Sept. 4th) at the Fossil Beds. Part of his research for that year was published in the scientific section of the Canadian Alpine Journal in 1908 (a publication of the newly-established Alpine Club of Canada).
This publication was the first illustrated account of most of the fossils found at the locality. In it, Walcott proposed the term “Ogygopsis shale” after the dominant form of trilobites found there. (The term is still sometimes used today in the technical literature to refer to the Trilobite Beds.)
Walcott wrote:
“The best way to make a collection from the ‘fossil bed’ is to ride up the trail on a pony to about 2000 feet [about 600 m] above the railroad, collect specimens, securely wrap them in paper, place them in a bag, tie the bag to the saddle, and lead the pony down the mountain. A fine lot can be secured in a long day’s trip, 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.”
At the time, this article would have been widely read by tourists visiting the area, probably encouraging private collectors and visits to the site. (Note: Do not attempt to follow Walcott’s advice today! Collecting fossils from the area is not allowed without a research and collecting permit).
Tourists arriving by train would have stayed at the comfortable Mount Stephen House in Field, just below the fossil locality. “All enjoyed the home-like Mount Stephen House” Walcott wrote on Aug 25th 1907. Walcott and his family continued to stay at the hotel in the following years when they did not camp closer to the fossils.
Walcott also introduced the term “Stephen Formation” (in a different publication, also published in 1908) as a unit of Cambrian rock which included what he had defined as the “Ogygopsis shale.”
The Walcott family returned to the Canadian Rockies in 1909 to continue exploring the Stephen Formation and to search for more of the “Ogygopsis shale” on nearby mountains.
On Aug. 30th, almost at the end of his field season, Walcott was riding alone between Wapta Mountain and Mount Field, just a few kilometers north of Mount Stephen, on a trail still used to reach the area, when he stumbled on “many interesting fossils”. This was a day after he had discovered more “Ogygopsis shale” nearby, according to his field notebook (though not a single specimen of Ogygopsis would ever be found there).
He returned the next day accompanied by his wife Helena and his son Stuart. Together they found several other remarkable fossils that Walcott immediately sketched in his field notebook. Obviously impressed by this discovery, Walcott’s entry for Aug. 31st – Sept 1st reads:
“Out with Helena, Stuart collecting fossils from the Stephen Formation. We found a remarkable group of Phyllopod crustaceans – Took a large number of fine specimens to camp.” The next day: “We continued collecting found a fine group of sponges on slope (in-situ) – Beautiful warm days”
The fossils discovered by the Walcotts represented types of animals that had never been seen before.
The Walcotts spent a total of five days that year collecting fossils in the area, mostly from loose slabs of rock found near the trail and on slopes.
Walcott quickly realized the importance of his finds. In a letter sent later that year to William Arthur Parks (his colleague and long-term correspondent at the University of Toronto) Walcott wrote: “…I had a few days collecting in the Stephen Formation [today’s Burgess Shale] in the vicinity of Field in September, and found some very interesting things.”
Historical Letters
© ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM
Charles, Helena and three of their children (Helen, Stuart and Sidney), as well as Walcott’s long term field camp cook, Arthur Brown, returned to the area the following year (1910). They all camped below Burgess Pass near the 1909 discovery site, a site which they would use year after year. Travelling by railroad and horse, as well as living in the camp and collecting Burgess Shale fossils would become a familiar summer occupation for the Walcotts in the coming years.
On Aug. 2nd he wrote: “Out collecting with Helena, Stuart and Sidney. We found a fine bed of ‘Lace crab’ [Marrella] plus various odd kinds of things.” They had finally located the source of the fossils in its proper stratigraphic context – i.e., within the rock beds rather than scattered about in loose rocks that had slid down onto the trail.
From that day on, most fossils would be quarried from several layers within a section two metres (six feet) thick that Walcott subsequently referred to as the “Phyllopod bed.” (The name came from the presence of arthropod fossils with finely preserved leaf-like appendages, like Waptia.
Walcott and his team initially dug a small quarry, which would grow much larger over the coming years. (The location is now known as the Walcott Quarry, and the area separating Wapta Mountain from Mount Field is informally known as Fossil Ridge.)
Excavated blocks of shale had to be slid down the side of the mountain and then transported by horse to camp, where the shale was split, trimmed, and packed. Fossils were then sent to Field and shipped by train to Washington, D.C.
Walcott’s Camp at Burgess Pass.
© ERIN YOUNGER FAMILY COLLECTION AND SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION ARCHIVES
1911 marked the first time Walcott had a chance to publish his findings from the “Burgess Shale”. In a paper on holothurians and medusae Walcott proposed the name Burgess Shale as “a geographic name for a shale to which the term of Ogygopsis shale [=Mount Stephen Trilobite Beds] was given in 1908. It is proposed to call it the Burgess shale of the Stephen formation”.
Walcott named one of the most spectacular fossils Sidneyia inexpectans, meaning “Sidney’s discovery”, as it was discovered in 1910 by his son Sidney. This became one of the first animals from the Burgess Shale to be described and illustrated. The first reconstruction of this animal appeared in The Ottawa Naturalist in 1917, but proved to be misleading.
In addition to his technical accounts, Walcott also wrote a popular article for National Geographic in June 1911 called “A Geologist’s Paradise”, describing the scenic beauty of the region. The Burgess Shale became an instant sensation, quickly spreading beyond conventional scientific circles.
1911 also marked the tragic death of Walcott’s wife Helena in a train crash on July 11th. (Walcott would later marry the prominent naturalist Mary Vaux in 1914.) Despite his loss, and perhaps to bury his grief in work, Walcott returned to the site with his family in August.
His team spent five weeks digging for fossils, occasionally using explosives to blast through the rock. At the end of the season the quarry was about 20 m (66 feet) wide and 3 m (10 feet) deep with a back wall about 3.5 m (11 feet) tall. As in 1910, huge blocks of shale were brought to camp to be split, trimmed, and packed.
Walcott returned again in 1912, 1913, and 1917, collecting more specimens and further extending the quarry, but fewer and fewer new species were found.
Walcott had suggested as early as 1912 that the base of his quarry was unsuitable for fossils, writing “The layers of shale are arenaceous, irregular, and not favorable for preserving fossils.” In a report published in 1918 he reflected on his 1917 quarrying activities: “this practically exhausts a quarry which has given the finest and largest series of Middle Cambrian fossils yet discovered and the finest invertebrate fossils yet found in any formation in any country.”
At the quarry. © ERIN YOUNGER FAMILY COLLECTION AND SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION ARCHIVES
Walcott made only short collecting trips after 1917, returning in 1919, 1921, and 1924, collecting fossils from loose material below the quarry on talus slope. The day of his last visit to the quarry (July 11th, 1924) he wrote: “We went up to my old fossil quarry and collected 2 packages of fossils from rock quarried in 1919. Nothing new but all good for exchange.”
During Walcott’s last summer at the quarry (1924), Percy Raymond of Harvard University made his first visit to the site while leading a summer school course in field geology. Raymond never met Walcott in the field but would soon return to the quarry with more ambitious goals.
Over the course of his many visits to the area, Walcott collected some 65,000 fossils. This collection became one of the jewels of the Smithsonian Institution’s permanent collections at the US National Museum (now the National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C.).
Specimens received from the field after each of Walcott’s collecting seasons were trimmed at the Smithsonian Institution using a rocksaw to remove as much of the surrounding shale as possible. This would have minimized the weight and volume of rock that had to be stored. Catalogue numbers and small, green, diamond-shaped labels were applied to the specimens (35k for the Walcott Quarry specimens and 35k/10 for specimens collected above it – probably representing the level of the Raymond Quarry).
Specimens were then neatly arranged in trays and organized in successive drawers according to their taxonomic group. Species would be arranged in alphabetical order within phyla, so a specimen of Marrella splendens, for example, would have been placed in alphabetical sequence with other arthropods.
When a single slab of rock was collected with several species visible, each specimen would have been cut out of the larger slab, and the various individual fossils separated and organized in different drawers by species. During this process, parts and counterparts of the same specimens were not kept together and were often dispersed through various areas of the collections.
Walcott also sent duplicates of some of his fossils to other museums (often the counterparts) as exchange material, so parts and counterparts of the same specimens (including figured specimens) sometimes ended up in different collections.
After Walcott’s death in 1927, his fossils would be largely ignored for nearly 40 years. It was not until 1962 that Alberto Simonetta and Laura Delle Cave published several scientific papers presenting a number of reconstructions of the fossil arthropods. (With a few exceptions, Walcott did not include re-creations of his fossils.) These studies were preliminary and the Walcott collection remained unused until Harry Whittington and his team re-investigated Walcott’s collection, along with collections subsequently made by Raymond, and the Geological Survey of Canada.
Even though Walcott observed in the field that some specimens came from particular layers within the Phyllopod Bed, he never recorded the exact stratigraphic origin of his specimens. For this reason, the Smithsonian collection represents a mix of fossils from different layers representing different time periods. The lack of detailed stratigraphic information was one justification for subsequent Geological Survey of Canada and Royal Ontario Museum expeditions.
Today the Walcott collection at the National Museum of Natural History remains a critical reference for the Burgess Shale because it hosts most of the type specimens that were used to describe the majority of species recovered from this site.
The collection also continues to provide important new discoveries, mainly from the non-type and non-figured specimens (those specimens that have not been described in print, representing the vast majority of the collection).
For example, two specimens which had clearly been set aside and photographed by Walcott for publication (but for some reason were never included in any of his papers) turned out to belong to a new species. In 2007 the two specimens were used in a publication – together with newly-collected specimens from the Royal Ontario Museum – and the species was named Orthrozanclus reburrus. This suggests more new species could still be awaiting discovery in Walcott’s collection, decades after they were unearthed!
The following objects were discovered by the Royal Ontario Museum during various expeditions to the Burgess Shale starting in 1975. They were found in Walcott’s camp below Burgess Pass, about one kilometre (0.6 miles) south from the main Burgess Shale quarry. Rusty cans and tinware are still visible today in several areas of his camp, as well as beds made of now rotting cedar boughs and piles of leftover pieces of shale (from blocks that were brought to the camp to be split and checked for fossils). Many fossils, including Marrella splendens, were found by ROM crews in these debris piles.
The McClary Company of London, Ontario offered a range of camping supplies. Walcott may have purchased field equipment from either the Toronto or Winnipeg outlets when he travelled to the Burgess Shale across Canada by train.
Practical Items from Walcott’s 1910 Campsite – all manufactured in the early 20th century
These objects were found by ROM crews in 1994 and 1995 when they were removing the piles of debris that had accumulated since Walcott last worked the quarry in 1917. These objects provide important clues to early 20th-century techniques employed by Walcott for extracting large blocks of shale and fossils.
These newspapers were found frozen in a block of ice in 1995 by a ROM crew digging at the debris that had fallen into the Walcott Quarry. Newspapers were used to pack fossil specimens, and these were left behind after Walcott’s 1917 field season. (The cartoon on the front page represents Theodore Roosevelt.)
Hitting the wedge with heavy hammers and rotating it regularly would have had the same effect as a pneumatic or gasoline rock drill. But it would have required a great deal of effort to make a hole large enough for a stick of dynamite. (Some pitting from dynamite explosions is still visible in the back wall of the quarry.)
Chisels like this were used to carefully split shale in the search for fossils. This one was probably left behind because the flat tip had broken against the hard shale.
Such triple-digit gloves provided warmth and a comfortable grip in all seasons. The leather is thick and was probably sufficient for protection against the sharp edges of the shale during quarrying and collecting operations.
Faced with the huge task of describing the many new animal and algal forms he collected during his excavations, Walcott opted to publish short descriptions of many fossils in a series of monographs that he himself considered preliminary works.
He published his work in various volumes of the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections series (not surprisingly, as Walcott was Secretary of the Smithsonian at the time). These monographs remain invaluable reference works and are still the only source of information for some taxa.
It is worth emphasizing that most of Walcott’s publications were based on material that had been collected in his earlier expeditions, especially during his 1910 and 1911 field seasons. With a few notable exceptions, fossils discovered in later years were not described in print.
In 1911 he published three monographs, based mostly on material he collected during his 1910 field season. These described arthropods (“Merostomata” including Sidneyia), holothurians and medusae, and annelid worms.
Walcott published a larger study on the arthropods in 1912, including Marrella, Waptia, and Naraoia (the first fossils he discovered in 1909). This was followed by monographs on trilobites (1918), algae (1919), and sponges (1920). Many more specimens were described in a final, posthumous monograph (edited by Charles Resser) published in 1931.
Walcott named more than 60 new genera and many new families that he placed within established orders and classes. In addition to these named specimens, Walcott recognized many other new forms which were neatly organized in his collections (sometimes with suggested new names on small note cards), but he did not have time to describe all of them during his lifetime.
Walcott had to provide new names for both the genus and the species of his many fossil discoveries. He would often turn to the natural features in the area (mountains, peaks, glaciers, valleys, waterfalls, lakes, passes, creeks) for the name of a new genus. Most of these features had been named during the late 19th century by explorers and early surveyors. (Otto Klotz, for example, named Mount Burgess in 1886 after the Deputy Minister of the Interior Alexander Burgess.)
Some of the local names Walcott chose were based on Stony or Cree Indian words, such as Waptia (from “Wapta” meaning river), Takakkawia (from “Takakkawa” meaning magnificent), and Yohoia (from “Yoho” representing a cry of astonishment).
Names of other genera were chosen from personal names (Sidneyia for his son Sidney, Marrella for his friend John Edmund Marr from Cambridge University), general geographic names (Canadia and Canadaspis), towns (Banffia and Laggania – after the hamlet of Laggan, now Lake Louise) or railway points (Eldonia and Leanchoilia). Species names were mostly based on descriptive terms such as compacta, elongata, perfecta, or triangulata.
Walcott used photography to document his scientific work.
In the field he used various cameras including a Cirkut Camera to produce stunning panoramic images. Many of these images were then published in scientific or popular accounts.
Walcott’s 1911 article in National Geographic called “A Geologist’s Paradise” included a supplement featuring several images including one of his panoramic images of the area. The image folded out to a size of 2.5m (8 feet), making it the single largest photograph ever included in the magazine. (See cover of the 1911 article in the section “Triumph & Tragedy: 1911” and Walcott’s panorama in the section “The Great Discovery: 1909”)
Slide show about Walcott’s Photography.
© ERIN YOUNGER FAMILY COLLECTION AND SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION ARCHIVES
Walcott used a series of photographs to illustrate his work back in Washington, but because it was difficult to obtain good images of the fossils, he modified many photos for publication (see Orthrozanclus below).
Such modifications were a common practice at the time to enhance features that were difficult to show using contemporary photographic techniques. But they would not be acceptable for scientific publication today because they can sometimes add subjective features that are not present on the specimens.
The landmark discoveries and extensive field work of Charles Walcott were followed up immediately by the research of another American palaeontologist, Percy Raymond. He visited the Burgess Shale three times in the mid-1920s, opened a new quarry in 1930, and established a substantial research and teaching collection at Harvard University.
By the middle of the 1920s, Walcott’s discovery of the Burgess Shale was already well known to the scientific community and the wider public. The proximity of a Parks Canada trail (which undoubtedly had facilitated Walcott’s discovery) made the Burgess Shale an attractive destination for tourists, teachers, and students. This trail, originally established in the early 20th century, is still being used today.
Amongst the many new visitors to the site was Percy Raymond, a curator of Paleontology at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology. Raymond had been assistant curator at the Carnegie Museum (1904-1910) and the Geological Survey of Canada’s chief paleontologist (1910-1912) before moving to Harvard where he worked until his retirement in 1945.
Perhaps more importantly, Raymond noted the presence of a second fossiliferous bed higher up on the mountain, about 22 metres (72 feet) above the Walcott Quarry. Raymond was not the actual discoverer of these fossiliferous beds – Walcott had collected several fossils from there (and even sketched some), like the sponge Vauxia. But Raymond quarried these beds more extensively, uncovering additional Vauxia specimens as well as Ottoia, Leanchoilia, and Sidneyia. This second quarry is now known as Raymond’s Quarry — but the limits of the original quarry have been lost due to subsequent excavations by the GSC and ROM at the same levels.
Raymond’s specimens showed Burgess Shale-type fossils could be found beyond the famous Walcott Quarry and at various stratigraphic intervals, including in the Mount Stephen Trilobite Beds. Indeed, new Burgess shale-type deposits have since been discovered as far away as China, Greenland, and Australia.
The next scientifically-significant visitor to the Burgess Shale was a famous physicist turned paleontologist. Franco Rasetti had immigrated to Canada from Italy in 1939 to take the chair in Physics at Laval University, Quebec. Rasetti had been part of an influential group of scientists headed by Enrico Fermi before the Second World War and helped work out the basics of atomic fission. Fermi went on to help develop the first atomic bomb, but Rasetti chose to take a job at Laval in Quebec because he did not want to be involved in war-related research. Even as he helped establish Laval’s Physics Department, he became increasingly interested in botany and paleontology, particularly trilobites. A former student recalled that Rasetti looked for trilobite fossils “everywhere”, collecting thousands of specimens which he carefully classified and described.
During two field expeditions in 1947 and 1948, Rasetti systematically collected many trilobites from the Stephen Formation and other Middle Cambrian rocks in the southern Canadian Rockies. His accounts of these trilobites were published in the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections in 1951 and still represent the only major regional reference on these fossils.
Trilobites are valuable to paleontologists because they are good biostratigraphic indicators: they tend to be common fossils, to be distributed widely and to evolve comparatively quickly. Using trilobites as markers allows researchers to determine that different rock units, even if they are widely separated from each other, have a similar age if they have a similar combination of trilobite species.
Prior to Rasetti’s work, Deiss (1939) had proposed the Bathyuriscus–Elrathina Zone, named after two trilobites found in Middle Cambrian rock units present in North America. These trilobites are common in the Burgess Shale, placing the relative age of the Stephen Formation in the Middle Cambrian. Rasetti established a number of additional trilobite zones and “faunules” subdividing the Stephen Formation into smaller relative time slices, which proved useful in later stratigraphic studies.
During the early 1960s, the GSC was actively involved in re-mapping the southern Rocky Mountains of Alberta and British Columbia using new methods and techniques. Harry Whittington, then Professor of Geology at Harvard University, contacted the GSC with a proposal to reinvestigate the Burgess Shale and reopen the Burgess Shale quarries. The proposal was soon expanded into a detailed paleontological, geological, and stratigraphic study of the Burgess Shale.
As he made his first studies, Whittington discovered the fossils were not two-dimensional impressions (as Walcott had thought). In fact, they retained some of the original organism’s three-dimensional structure, albeit highly compressed into very thin layers within the rock. This observation meant that when split open, the part and counterpart (opposing sides) of the same fossil could reveal minutely different levels of the specimen — and these needed to be studied together to provide a complete anatomical interpretation.
Before the GSC collections, specimens from various layers had been collected and stored together, so very little information on the exact stratigraphic location of the fossils was available. In addition, the parts and counterparts of specimens collected by earlier expeditions had often been dispersed to different collections, making it difficult to reliably estimate the number of specimens present (and sometimes removing important morphological information which would have only been available with both sides of the fossil).
The specimens collected in 1966 and 1967 by the GSC would attempt to address these problems.
In 1966 the Survey’s James Aitken (an expert on stratigraphy) led a party of thirteen, including Whittington and William Fritz (a GSC stratigrapher and expert on Cambrian trilobites). (David Bruton from the University of Oslo would join the 1967 field season.)
As the excavation continued, the exact level at which each fossil was found was measured from a fixed reference point and great care was taken to ensure parts and counterparts of specimens were kept together. This precise methodology was a significant improvement on earlier expeditions.
Whittington was the first scientist to prepare fossils from the Burgess Shale anatomically, very similar to the dissection of a modern organism.
After mechanical preparation, the next step was to draw specimens using a camera-lucida attachment (a drawing tube with a mirror attached to a stereomicroscope). This allowed an observer to see both the fossil and its image reflected onto a sheet of paper for easy tracing of details. The method allowed researchers to identify fine differences in the different layers of the fossils and to interpret the features observed. Both preparation and drawing methods are still used today to study Burgess Shale fossils.
The Cambridge group consisted of Harry Whittington and two of his former PhD students, Derek Briggs (who studied the fossil arthropods of the Burgess Shale) and Simon Conway Morris (who was assigned the fossil worms). Chris Hughes and David Bruton (the latter being the only member of this group who was not based in Cambridge) provided more modest contributions on the arthropods.
In addition to the paleontological discoveries about the Burgess Shale fauna coming from the Cambridge group, the GSC‘s geological studies produced important results as well.
Year | Lead Author | Phyla-level | Animal Described |
|---|---|---|---|
1971 | Whittington | Arthropod | Marrella |
1974 | Whittington | Arthropod | Yohoia and
Plenocaris |
1975 | Whittington | Arthropod | |
1975 | Hughes | Arthropod | Burgessia |
1976 | Briggs | Arthropod | Branchiocaris |
1976 | Conway Morris | Mollusc | |
1977 | Whittington | Arthropod | Naraoia |
1977 | Briggs | Arthropod | Perspicaris |
1977 | Conway Morris | Arthropod-Lobopod | Hallucigenia |
1977 | Conway Morris | Indeterminate | Amiskwia |
1977 | Conway Morris | Indeterminate | Dinomischus |
1977 | Conway Morris | Priapulid | |
1978 | Whittington | Arthropod-Lobopod | Aysheaia |
1978 | Briggs | Arthropod | Canadaspis |
1978 | Conway Morris | Arthropod | Laggania |
1979 | Briggs | Arthropod | Anomalocaris |
1979 | Conway Morris | Annelid | |
1980 | Whittington | Arthropod | Olenoides, Nathorstia (2) |
1981 | Whittington | Arthropod | |
1981 | Briggs | Arthropod | Odaraia |
1981 | Bruton | Arthropod | Sidneyia |
1983 | Bruton and Whittington | Arthropod | |
1985 | Whittington | Arthropod | Tegopelte |
1985 | Whittington and Briggs | Arthropod | Anomalocaris |
1985 | Conway Morris | Mollusc | Wiwaxia |
1993 | Conway Morris | Indeterminate | Thaumaptilon,
Mackenzia,
Redoubtia (=Gelenoptron) |
1998 | Whittington | Arthropod | Hanburia |
Conway Morris tabulated every specimen on all the slabs in the Walcott and GSC collections from the Walcott Quarry that he could find. Before this painstaking survey, nobody had any idea how big the Walcott collection actually was. The numbers were astonishing: 35,520 slabs observed, 73,300 specimens counted. Of these, about 65,000 specimens had been collected by Walcott, the rest were collected by the GSC expeditions of 1966 and 1967. (The Walcott collection represented by far the largest collection of fossils from the Burgess Shale until it was surpassed by the ROM‘s own Burgess Shale collection at the end of the 1990s.
In addition to revealing the importance of predation in the Burgess Shale ecosystem, Conway Morris suggested the structure of the Burgess Shale community was typical of what other marine communities in similar environments during the Middle Cambrian would have looked like. This conclusion was soon confirmed with the discovery of other deposits of Burgess Shale-type fossils. Conway Morris’s study also emphasized that without the exceptional preservation of soft tissues found in the Burgess Shale, about 86% of the genera (representing the majority of the specimens) in this community would have been lost to decay and left no trace in the fossil record.
The work of the Cambridge group played a critical role in re-igniting interest in the Burgess Shale and soon led to further discoveries elsewhere — notably in China. One of the main surprises the Cambridge group encountered was the fact that many organisms from the Burgess Shale did not fit easily into modern groups of animals. These studies dramatically emphasized the rapid appearance and diversity of animals during the Cambrian, and were pointed to as evidence for the “Cambrian explosion“.
The work of the Cambridge group reached a much larger audience in 1989 with the publication of Stephen Jay Gould’s best-selling book, Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History.
Gould’s main hypothesis was the possibility that many Burgess Shale organisms described by the Cambridge group represented potential new phyla, which he evocatively called “weird wonders”. This suggested that the diversity of phyla was greater in the Cambrian than it is today. Over the course of history, chance alone would have wiped out most groups, leaving a lucky few to evolve to the present.
After travelling to Cambridge for study in the 1970s, the new GSC specimens were housed at the GSC in Ottawa. They are the second-largest collection of Burgess Shale fossils in Canada, after the ROM. They reside close to older collections, principally from Mount Stephen, made decades earlier by McConnell and several other geologists from the GSC.
In 1975, the Royal Ontario Museum became the fourth major institution to conduct active field work and research on the Burgess Shale. That 1975 season marked the beginning of the most extensive campaigns of field work in the history of the Burgess Shale, dwarfing all previous expeditions combined – not only in the number of field seasons and total number of days spent in the field, but also in the discovery of new fossil sites and the number of specimens collected.
The result of those expeditions is the ROM‘s mammoth collection of more than 150,000 Burgess Shale fossils encompassing about 200 described species. Most of these fossils were collected layer by layer in several quarries in the area between Wapta Mountain and Mount Field (informally known today as Fossil Ridge). Others came from localities tens of kilometres away from the type localities. These specimens, carefully stored and catalogued, represent a treasure trove for scientists and provide material for research projects ranging from taphonomy (i.e., preservation of fossils) and taxonomy (i.e., description of new species or revision of others) to evolutionary biology, as well as paleoecological and paleoenvironmental studies.
Research on the Burgess Shale continues today, with many exciting discoveries coming both from the field and the study of the existing collections.
Desmond Collins, who left the Natural History Museum in London to join the ROM in 1968, led the first eighteen ROM field expeditions (between 1975 and 2000) – following in the tradition of the Smithsonian Institution (1909-1924), Harvard University (1930), and the Geological Survey of Canada (1966-1967). Collins had no idea in 1975 that this first expedition would not only radically transform his career, but greatly expand our knowledge of Cambrian life. When he began, Collins had no previous experience in the study of Burgess Shale fossils: his first visit to the site was a matter of serendipity.
Desmond Collins first visited the Walcott Quarry in 1972 during a one-day field excursion, part of the International Geological Congress held that year in Montreal. The excursion included Harry Whittington, James Aitken, and William Fritz – three key members of the previous GSC (Geological Survey of Canada) expeditions to the site in 1966-1967. During this short visit, Collins (whose area of expertise at the time was fossil cephalopods) was particularly impressed by the sheer number of fossils still scattered along the talus slopes after previous expeditions to the two existing quarries on Fossil Ridge (the Raymond Quarry and Walcott Quarry).
Goal: Display Specimens for Canada
Collins’ first visit also happened to coincide with a planned new gallery on Invertebrate Paleontology at the Royal Ontario Museum (a gallery that opened in 1977, but has since been replaced). He quickly realized the potential the discarded fossils from the Burgess Shale represented for the new gallery. The few specimens from the Walcott Quarry in the ROM collection at the time had been sent to the museum by Walcott himself decades earlier, but were not particularly suitable for an exhibit.
One of the arguments Collins made in favour of the first ROM collecting expedition was the fact that, in the early 1970s, there was no permanent display of Burgess Shale fossils in Canada. Today, the Royal Ontario Museum has the world’s largest collection of Burgess Shale fossils with more than 150,000 specimens. But Collins had no plan to study the Burgess Shale in depth when he formally approached Parks Canada for permission to collect fossils for display … that would only come later.
Talus Collections
Despite several requests from Desmond Collins, Parks Canada refused to allow excavations in 1975. Instead, the nine members of the ROM team would only be allowed to collect loose rocks (talus) below the Walcott and Raymond Quarries. Many of these rocks were chunks of shale that had been dug out and discarded by earlier expeditions. In addition to specimens for an upcoming ROM gallery, Parks Canada requested that the ROM team collect duplicates of common species to be used in teaching at universities and museums across Canada (including for Parks Canada itself).
The 1975 Royal Ontario Museum Burgess Shale Expedition. © ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM
Despite poor weather conditions and the prohibition against excavations, the ROM team collected more than 8,000 fossils over eight weeks in the field. Most came from talus slopes below the Walcott Quarry and a smaller collection came from the Trilobite Beds on Mount Stephen. But the ROM team also discovered many specimens of the small arthropod Marrella splendens in Walcott’s camp just below Burgess Pass. These fossils were found in piles of split shale that had been left behind in the camp.
The team also discovered a number of artifacts (tinware, bottles) left at the camp by Walcott at the end of his expeditions.
Back in Toronto, technician David Rudkin faced the daunting task of creating sets of duplicate specimens to be distributed to museums and universities – while keeping enough good display specimens for the ROM gallery. The ROM would send about 2,000 fossils from the 1975 collection (representing dozens of species) to more than 20 institutions across Canada. Perhaps more importantly, these early collections helped shift the focus of subsequent expeditions to new research.
Discovery of New Species
Many surprises awaited the ROM crew in 1975. While scouring the slopes they found a new species, quickly dubbed the “goose barnacle” (eventually described by Collins and Rudkin as Priscansermarinus barnetti). The team also uncovered counterparts of specimens that had been collected by earlier expeditions, including a specimen of Branchiocaris pretiosa (which turned out to match a fossil that had been collected by Percy Raymond in 1930, 45 years earlier!). The Cambridge group took advantage of the 1975 collection, including several ROM specimens in their publications.
The finding of a few rare and new fossils (including some from above the Raymond and Walcott Quarries) indicated there could be entirely new fossil layers waiting to be excavated – a prediction confirmed just a few years later. Taken together, all these discoveries demonstrated new field work and collections in the area could still produce valuable research material.
Desmond Collins – Early Recollections.
© CANADIAN WILDERNESS VIDEO PRODUCTIONS
Starting in 1981 and for a total of six field seasons (1981-1984, 1988, 1989), the main goal of the ROM Burgess Shale parties was finding new Burgess Shale sites in the Stephen Formation. During the early stages (particularly 1981-1982) few fossils were collected, but the rate of discovery would increase in the following years, thanks largely to excavations of the new sites.
Key Geological Studies
The ROM parties were inspired by the detailed geological work of Ian McIlreath, who had been working on his Ph.D. at the University of Calgary on rock formations related to the Burgess Shale in the mid 1970s. McIlreath had made a key discovery. He recognized that the submarine cliff adjacent to the Walcott and Raymond Quarries on Fossil Ridge (defined by Fritz in 1966 and originally spotted by Ney in 1954 on Mount Field) persisted for more than 20 kilometres (12.4 miles), running through several mountains across Yoho National Park in a roughly northwest-southeast direction. If the submarine cliff (referred to as the Cathedral Escarpment) was important in the formation and preservation of Burgess Shale fossils in the adjacent basinal Stephen Formation (as suggested by earlier GSC studies), then more discoveries were probably waiting to be made elsewhere along it.
Discovery of New Sites
The ROM crew’s discovery of rare fossils above the Walcott and Raymond Quarries in 1975 suggested there should be more fossil deposits present somewhere in the area. But Parks Canada would not allow any new excavations above the fossil localities prior to 1984. In 1981 Collins was accompanied by Derek Briggs (who returned in 1982) and Simon Conway Morris. (Both researchers had just completed their doctoral studies on the Burgess Shale fossils.)
Following the contours of the Cathedral Escarpment led to the discovery of more than a dozen new Burgess Shale-type deposits on six different mountains around the original quarries. These were among the most significant discoveries since Walcott’s time, and led to a summary paper in Science in 1983.
In most cases, only a few fossils were collected from each location, and only from talus material, so the stratigraphic origin of the fossils was difficult to determine. But at a few sites, fossils were also extracted from in-situ layers of rock, giving a better understanding of their stratigraphic relationship to the rock layers at the other sites.
Some of the new localities came from rock layers that were older than the rocks of the original Walcott Quarry, while other localities came from rock layers that were younger (see How Old is the Burgess Shale). This suggested the Burgess Shale biota not only spread out over a broad area, but also survived over a longer time span than originally thought.
Two of the new sites discovered by the ROM during these reconnaissance years were particularly remarkable and would be extensively excavated in coming years.
The Sanctacaris Locality on Mount Stephen
One of the first new localities discovered in 1981 was on Mount Stephen not too far from the Trilobite Beds featuring spectacular new specimens of Branchiocaris. It was originally dubbed W.S. for “West Stephen” but is now known as the Collins Quarry on Mount Stephen.
In 1982 the ROM parties started to excavate blocks of rock from this site, providing many specimens of Alalcomenaeus and Branchiocaris as well as new animals, such as the ctenophore Xanioascus. (Alalcomenaeus and Branchiocaris are very rare in the Walcott and Raymond Quarries but proved surprisingly abundant in the Collins Quarry on Mount Stephen.)
The first significant excavation of this new site took place in 1983. Because of the steep location, a helicopter had to airlift wooden platforms for tents to the site of the base camp. Out of the remarkable fossils discovered at the locality, one arthropod was perhaps the most striking. Originally thought to be a possible distant relative of modern spiders, it was quickly nicknamed “Santa Claws” (now known as Sanctacaris) for its many pairs of spined appendages.
Working at the Sanctacaris Locality, 1983.
© ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM
Above Walcott and Raymond Quarries
Fossil specimens were collected from talus material in 1982, 65 metres (213 feet) above the Walcott Quarry, but the source of those fossils would not be discovered for two more years.
The 1984 field season included more reconnaissance work, but the highlight of that summer was the excavation of fossils above the Raymond Quarry. The ROM crew camped in the Walcott Quarry, pitching tents on top of the snow that had accumulated within the quarry, and using the snow for drinking water and to preserve food (a practice followed in subsequent years). But the Quarry proved a precarious spot to spend the night! Rocks kept sliding down the side of the mountain (sometimes dislodged from the new excavations up the slope or jostled loose by passing mountain goats) and crashing into the tents in the quarry below. Excavations from this locality continued for another eight weeks in 1988.
During these two field seasons (1984 and 1988), two quarries were started at two different levels separated by a stratigraphic interval of about 5 metres (16.4 feet). The quarries were given ROM field names “EZ” and “UE” for Ehmaniella Zone and Upper Ehmaniella, named for the abundant trilobite present in both localities. “UE” was the higher and became the larger of the two quarries. (Both are now referred to as the Collins Quarry on Fossil Ridge.) They became a valuable source for new specimens of previously rare animals – a critical resource for researchers as they started reinvestigating these animals.
Among many other finds, the two new quarries yielded abundant specimens of:
Working at the Sanctacaris Slideshow above Walcott and Raymond Quarries, 1984-1988.
© ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM
Improved Collecting Methods
Within a period of 10 years the ROM teams collected specimens with the same techniques as previous Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) excavations — using hammers and chisels to split the small blocks of shale. Large blocks were often extracted by drilling a series of holes, inserting feathers and wedges into the holes, and then pounding the wedges into place with sledge hammers, thus creating enough stress to open up fissures in the rock. (Drill marks from the GSC and ROM excavations can still be seen in the quarry today.)
Unlike previous excavations on Fossil Ridge (by Walcott and Raymond), the ROM crews took great care to record the exact layers from which each specimen was collected. This was also an improvement over the previous GSC collecting methods, which consisted of recording the location where fossils were found measured from particular intervals. Each GSC interval usually represented various layers, so it was impossible to relate a specimen to a particular layer.
Knowing the precise levels at which the specimens were collected has allowed detailed taphonomic and paleoecological studies that were impossible using previous collections.
The Collins Quarry
The 1990 ROM expedition was much larger than in previous years, kicking off a decade of extensive digs. (The only exception was 1996, which was dedicated partially to reconnaissance.) Large crews worked the sites for up to two months each summer, with additional grants from National Geographic and Parks Canada supplementing the funding provided by the ROM since 1975.
In addition to continuing excavation in the Collins Quarry on Fossil Ridge (previously known as UE and EZ), a particularly rich layer of Tuzoia specimens was discovered between the Collins and Raymond Quarries – something hoped for since the 1975 expedition. This discovery further demonstrated that Burgess Shale fossils occur through almost the entire Stephen Formation succession on Fossil Ridge, but with very different compositions of fossils in different layers.
In 1990 the ROM crews also began to host official guided tours of the localities as part of an agreement with Parks Canada. (Guided tours of the area are still available from Parks Canada). Because of dangerous rock falls in previous seasons the ROM crew moved its campsite out of the Walcott Quarry in 1990 to a more secure meadow near the base of Fossil Ridge. This was the same campsite used by the GSC during the 1966-1967 expeditions, and by the first ROM crew in 1975.
Aerial view of flying in to Walcott Quarry in 1990.
© CANADIAN WILDERNESS VIDEO PRODUCTIONS
Reopening of the Raymond Quarry
From 1991 to 1993 (and again during part of 1997) the major goal was re-excavating layers at the level of the original Raymond Quarry, which proved to be far more productive than the layers above in the Collins Quarry. The ROM started several excavations northwest and southeast of Raymond’s original quarry and after a few years of excavations, the three small quarries merged into one large quarry. As was the case for all previous excavations, the work was done mainly by hand — using sledge hammers and chisels to split the rock (with occasional recourse to rock saws and a gas-driven jackhammer-drill).
But the research highlight of 1991 was almost certainly the discovery of the most complete Anomalocaris specimen ever found. This was duly (if modestly) referenced in Collins’ field notes:
“Aug 27 (Tues) Crew up in quarry by 10. Catalogue large slabs. Parks tour including Bruce Runnegar arrives at 2. Catalogue now up to 1415 – whole Anomolocaris canadensis.”
While the nature of this species as a predator had been determined earlier by Whittington, the quality of the complete specimen (as well as additional ones collected by the ROM) provided new anatomical details and previously-unknown morphological features, confirming its status as a large, swimming predator.
Video Overview of the 1991 Field Expedition.
© CANADIAN WILDERNESS VIDEO PRODUCTIONS
Voices from the Burgess Shale: Terry Fletcher.
© CANADIAN WILDERNESS VIDEO PRODUCTIONS
Voices from the Burgess Shale: Peter Allison.
© CANADIAN WILDERNESS VIDEO PRODUCTIONS
Reopening the Walcott Quarry
After nearly two decades of searching for new sites, scouring talus slopes on different mountains through Yoho and Kootenay National Parks, and excavating new fossil layers closer and closer to the Walcott Quarry, the ROM team was given permission to re-open the famous site. In 1994 and 1995 the ROM team turned almost all its resources to the Walcott Quarry, where major excavations would not end until 2000. This latest phase had started with trial pits dug in 1992 (and again in 1993) below the original Walcott Quarry floor. The ROM crews were astonished to find very fine, soft-bodied fossils in layers that Walcott had rejected almost 80 years earlier as incapable of preserving fossils. (ROM crews had spent several seasons camping in this quarry, little realizing as they spread out their bedding that they were sleeping on a cache of valuable fossils.)
Before reaching these new levels, the task ahead of the ROM crew at the beginning of the 1994 field season seemed nearly insurmountable. First, the huge quantity of snow accumulated in the Quarry during the past winter had to be shoveled away. When the team arrived at the site in early July, they found three distinct patches of snow filling the Walcott Quarry, the Raymond Quarry, and the Collins Quarry. (Ironically, it was the excavations from previous years that led to the problem as the deep holes proved ideal for keeping the snow frozen, even in the middle of summer.) Once the snow was removed, the heavy work began. With a team of eight, it took the better part of both collecting seasons (two months in total) just to remove the rock debris that had accumulated since Walcott’s time.
The work was split between removing the debris and quarrying the floor of the Walcott Quarry in search of fossils. During the clean-up, the ROM team uncovered rusted tools and a frozen block of newspapers dating from 1913 to 1917 (which Walcott had apparently brought to the area for wrapping fossils.)
The work was split between removing the debris and quarrying the floor of the Walcott Quarry in search of fossils. During the clean-up, the ROM team uncovered rusted tools and a frozen block of newspapers dating from 1913 to 1917 (which Walcott had apparently brought to the area for wrapping fossils.)
The effort paid off, and in the remainder of the collecting seasons, with the team carefully collecting fossils layer by layer, they recovered at least 10,000 specimens from just two rock layers located approximately 1.2 and 1.3 meters (4 feet) below Walcott’s Quarry. As was the case in the rest of the Phyllopod Bed, Marrella splendens was the most common fossil, but there were also many specimens of previously rare species including Pikaia gracilens and Hallucigenia sparsa.
Video Overview of the 1994 Field Expedition.
© CANADIAN WILDERNESS VIDEO PRODUCTIONS
Voices from the Burgess Shale: Desmond Collins.
© CANADIAN WILDERNESS VIDEO PRODUCTIONS
From 1997 to 2000 the ROM crews spent each summer excavating layers of rock in the Walcott Quarry. (The crews also collected material from several previously-excavated sites such as the Tulip Beds (S7) locality on Mount Stephen, but the main focus of those years was excavating the Walcott Quarry, layer by layer.)
Among the student volunteers who joined the expedition from 1998 to 2000 was Jean-Bernard Caron, who today is Curator of Invertebrate Palaeontology at the Royal Ontario Museum. He succeeded Desmond Collins, who retired in 2005.
In 2000, with the excavations reaching about 5 metres (16.4 feet) below the floor of the original Walcott Quarry, the fossil-bearing layers suddenly stopped. At this depth, a different type of rock (the Wash Limestone Member) was encountered which did not yield any soft-bodied fossils. At greater depths, the rock layers were increasingly deformed by numerous faults, greatly reducing the surface area available for excavation.
The accumulation of snow in the quarry was also a growing problem as the quarry grew deeper each year. In 1999, the ROM crew had to spend almost a month (half of the field season) removing the snow that had piled up in the quarry before the actual work of excavation could begin.
During these later expeditions, dozens of fossiliferous layers were systematically excavated by the ROM crews, with some bearing forms that had previously been extremely rare. A particular example was the bizarre animal Odontogriphus omalus, which had originally been described based on a single specimen. The ROM party discovered almost two hundred additional fossils of the animal, enabling a complete re-interpretation of what it originally looked like (published in Nature and exhibited at the ROM in 2006) suggesting the animal was probably related to a very ancient stock of mollusk. The lower levels also produced new species, including another mollusk-like animal called Orthrozanclus reburrus (fossils of which had been known to Walcott, but remained undescribed).
The 18 years of field work by ROM teams under Collins brought a vast increase in our understanding of the Burgess Shale’s fauna, structure, and diversity, as well as its distribution in space and over time. Today, the ROM holds the largest collection of Burgess Shale fossils in the world (more than 150,000 specimens), containing examples from all major beds and many new sites. These specimens will continue to be a valuable resource for the foreseeable future as new discoveries are uncovered not only in the field, but in the existing collection of fossils.
New Explorations and New Discoveries
In 2006, Jean-Bernard Caron joined the ROM after completing a study on the animal Banffia constricta for his M.Sc. and a Ph.D. on the taphonomy and ecology of the Walcott Quarry community. His appointment shifted the focus of the ROM expeditions from large excavations (collecting a large number of fossils) to a smaller-scale program of reconnaissance and exploration, combined with continuing studies of existing fossil collections. Since 2008, the focus has been on integrating all available information found in the field (micro and macrofossils, sediment, and trace fossils) using an interdisciplinary and collaborative approach. The current objective is to study areas that are known to be sources of Burgess Shale-type fossils but which have not yet had their fossil content or geology studied extensively.
The ROM 2008 Burgess Shale Expedition
The first site to be studied under this new research framework was a locality discovered in 1988 near the Stanley Glacier, 30 kilometres (18.6 miles) south of the main Burgess Shale site.
The talus slopes in the Stanley Glacier area had been visited by ROM crews before (in 1989 and 1996) but the geology of the area had not been studied in any detail, and the origin of the fossils remained unknown. The number of fossils from the area (prior to the 2008 expedition) was also too limited to allow comparisons with other Burgess Shale-type deposits. To address these deficiencies, a three-week expedition to the Stanley Glacier area was organized in the summer of 2008.
The team discovered the original source of fossils previously collected from the talus slopes by doing small excavations of in-situ rock blocks. They were then able to trace the thin strata for several kilometres, showing the fossiliferous outcrops were widely spread geographically and confirming they were part of the “thin” Stephen Formation (an idea which had been previously hypothesized, but not proven). Advances in technology made it possible to map and record the exact location of the fossil sites using digital photography and GPS coordinates.
The team was able to reveal that the Stanley Glacier site represented a very different environment, with no escarpment immediately adjacent to the sites – in contrast to all previous Burgess Shale-type deposits in the Canadian Rockies. Despite the short duration of the field work and relatively small number of specimens studied (around 1,000), new species were discovered along with known species.
The new species included Stanleycaris, representing a new type of Anomalocaris-like animal.
All these known species had been found elsewhere, including on Fossil Ridge, suggesting there were similarities between the ecological communities in different sites.
The team also visited other localities including Walcott Quarry, the Trilobite Beds on Mount Stephen and at several other sites to search the talus for rare fossils.
Video Overview of the 2008 Field Expedition at Stanley Glacier.
© ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM
Ongoing Field Research
The 2008 ROM expedition demonstrated there are still new Burgess Shale-type fossils to be discovered more than one hundred and twenty years after the first fossils on Mount Stephen were discovered.
A new ROM expedition set out in the summer of 2010, with a particular focus on determining more precisely the stratigraphic position of several poorly known fossil localities on Mount Stephen and Mount Odaray. These sites were discovered in 1981 by the ROM but had not been studied in detail since. More expeditions are planned to areas that might represent paleoenvironmental settings different from that of the classic Burgess Shale.
Slide Show Overview of the 2010 Field Expedition – Tulip Beds (S7).
© ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM
Slide Show Overview of the 2010 Field Expedition – Northwestern shoulder of Mount Stephen.
© ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM
Slide Show Overview of the 2010 Field Expedition – Mount Odaray.
© ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM
SUMMARY: Jean-Bernard Caron, Curator of invertebrate Palaeontology at the Royal Ontario Museum, displays a collection of letters from Charles Walcott to William Arthur Parks at the Royal Ontario Museum. (2:31)
“Here we’re in front of a series of letters written by Charles Doolittle Walcott to then the professor of geology at the University of Toronto, named Arthur Parks. Parks eventually became director of the Museum of Paleontology at the ROM later.”
“This correspondence starts around 1905 and ends around 1925 and shows discussion between Walcott and Parks about Burgess Shale fossils, and other fossils that the two men were interested to study. Here in particular there are two letters that are especially interesting in the context of the discovery of the Burgess Shale. We know that Walcott came to the Burgess Shale to visit the Trilobite Beds first in 1907 and this is a letter from Walcott written in the field while he visited the site in July 1907. A second letter here that is of interest is dated November 27, 1909. Written to Parks, but this time the letter comes from the Smithsonian Institution. And this letter is typed and mentions, in the last paragraph, that he [Walcott] had a few days collecting from the Stephen formation in the vicinity of Field in September and found some very interesting things. Well this is a reference to the discovery of the main Burgess Shale site that is so famous today. And this is probably one of the first letters mentioning the discovery to one of his colleagues.”
“This is an image of Walcott in the field, writing in his notebook. And potentially the first letter, from 1907, was written in similar conditions.”
“We also have some elements that were sent that demonstrate the kind of closeness between the two men. And those are actually Christmas cards that were sent to Parks with different shots from the Rocky Mountains on each of these cards. For example, this one from 1918 will show an image of Walcott’s camp, somewhere in the Rockies, close to Bow Lake”
© Royal Ontario Museum
SUMMARY: Getting to the Burgess Shale (0:34)
Grand Trunk Pacific Railway in 1913
Arthur Brown (Walcott’s assistant, left) with luggage in field
Helena, Helen and Charles Walcott arrive at Field, 1910
Helen Walcott on Burgess Pass Trail, 1910
Helen Walcott and “Chippie” in front of Wapta Mountain, 1911
Charles and Helen Walcott, August 1913
SUMMARY: Walcott Camp (1:18)
Mount Burgess with Burgess Pass and Walcott’s camp (left of image)
Fresh snowfall in camp, August 1910
Helen Walcott “in her boudoir”, August 1910
Helen Walcott working in tent on a rainy day, probably 1910
Stuart (left) and Sidney Walcott in tent, 1913
Charles Walcott’s “sleeping place”, 1910
Sidney (with camera), Stuart and Helen Walcott, 1910
Helena Walcott in work apron, 1910
Stuart Walcott packing fossils in camp, 1911
Shale path through camp, 1911
Helena Walcott looking out at snowfall, 1910
Stuart and Helen Walcott in snow, August 1910
Arthur Brown taking a break from chopping wood, 1910
Charles Walcott in snow, August 1910
Helen Walcott in camp with Fossil Ridge in background, 1910
SUMMARY: At the Quarry (0:56)
Charles and Stuart Walcott at Fossil Bed, 1910
Northern end of quarry, 1911
Northern end of quarry showing tools, 1911
Charles and Helen Walcott, August 1911
Charles Walcott at quarry, August 1913
Charles Walcott eating lunch in quarry, year unknown
Helen Walcott working in quarry, probably 1913
Taking a break in the quarry, 1913
Charles Walcott (left), Douglas Sansom and Helen Walcott, 1913
Charles Walcott and “Grandma”, 1913
Helen Walcott riding “Breeze”, year unknown
SUMMARY: Jean-Bernard Caron, Curator of invertebrate Palaeontology at the Royal Ontario Museum, shows off a small collection of objects left by Charles Walcott in the field and discovered by later ROM field parties. (2:38)
“So when the ROM collected specimens from the Burgess Shale, and went back to the Walcott Quarry, they discovered many artifacts that were left by Walcott himself. Not only in the quarry, but also in his camp. So here are some objects that are presented in front of you and two of these objects were found in the Walcott Quarry itself under piles of rubble that were removed by the ROM crews.”
“This particular artifact is a pile of newspaper that was found in a frozen block of ice under a large block of rock at the bottom of the quarry itself in 1995. And it’s amazing because many of these newspapers are actually from Walcott’s time. This one is dated from 1916 and is called The Morning Star. It is a newspaper from Washington [D.C.]. So clearly we have evidence here of Walcott’s work. He left piles of newspapers, he probably used these newspapers to pack his specimens back to Washington.”
“Here is a glove, a single glove, leather glove that is actually more a trapper glove with three digits. And this is a relatively small size, it is very thick leather, and is presumably from someone very small. The shales are very sharp, and it’s necessary to wear these gloves in order to avoid being cut. And this was probably left alone after the season or maybe lost.”
“Other artifacts were found in Walcott’s camp itself. At the time, even though Yoho National Park existed, the rules about cleaning up were not exactly the same as today. So it’s actually great for archeologists today. We can actually study what Walcott used and ate at the time,”
“This is just a selection, a small selection of artifacts that were collected in his camp. And you have various things here from a wine bottle to probably a jar of yogourt or milk, you have a teacup, and a large water jug here. A view of Walcott in his camp showing some of the tools, we also found some tools, small chisels in particular, in Walcott’s Quarry.”
© Royal Ontario Museum
SUMMARY: Jean-Bernard Caron, Curator of invertebrate Palaeontology at the Royal Ontario Museum, discusses Walcott’s use of the Kodak Cirkut Camera to take panoramic views of the landscapes in the Rockies. (2:35)
“Walcott used photography to study the rocks and the rock formations in the Canadian Rockies while he was exploring. And in particular he used this type of camera, called a Kodak Cirkut camera, which is a panoramic camera, which is basically a camera which is set on a tripod, which eventually is on a rotating plate, so you can actually take panoramas up to 360 degrees.”
“And this is one of the most famous panoramas taken by Walcott himself, showing the Burgess Shale, which is located around here. Walcott’s camp will have been around here, so every day he will have walked and used his horses to go to the quarry, which would have been located around here. This is an image that was taken probably in 1910, and eventually was published by National Geographic in 1911. And to this day it remains the largest picture ever published by any magazine anywhere in the world. It’s more than 2 metres in width. The actual panorama was offered as a supplement to all the subscribers of National Geographic and we have a copy here that is relatively rare. And this is an original reprint of this particular picture.”
“But most of these images were used to do some serious geological work. And many of these images were actually published in this monograph, describing the rocks of the Canadian Rockies. In fact, if you open this volume, in many places you are going to have large panoramas of many landscapes. So once again he used these images to do his work, there’s usually a description at the bottom of these images about what he sees on these images, and it’s a way to quickly take information in the field knowing that in the Canadian Rockies, the weather can change very quickly, and it’s very hard to stay in one place and probably draw all these mountains without being rained on. So usually photography still today is the best way to study the rocks.”
© Royal Ontario Museum
SUMMARY: Taking Photos (0:23)
Charles Walcott with Cirkut camera
Jack Burling (left), Stuart and Charles Walcott on Mt. Field, 1910
Helen and Charles Walcott (with camera), Little Yoko River
Charles Walcott taking a photograph
SUMMARY: Geological Survey of Canada Expedition 1966 (1:32)
Location of GSC campsite, just below trail
View from Walcott Quarry showing GSC campsite beside snowbank
View from Burgess Pass showing Fossil Ridge and Wapta Mountain
Excavation work on north side of Walcott Quarry, start of 1966 season
DESCRIPTION: men working in rock on mountainside
Harry Whittington (second from left) observing newly collected fossils
DESCRIPTION: men looking at bags of fossils
DESCRIPTION: workers on rock ledge in quarry
Walcott Quarry showing GSC reference point (circle)
DESCRIPTION: men on ledge in quarry
DESCRIPTION: men extracting rock from quarry face
DESCRIPTION: men beside snowbank on mountainside
DESCRIPTION: looking at fossils on mountainside
DESCRIPTION: using hand lens to study fossil
DESCRIPTION: men with sledge hammer on rock ledge
DESCRIPTION: people collecting fossils on rock face
DESCRIPTION: man, woman and child sitting on rock slope
1966 GSC crew (Harry Whittington in centre with pipe)
Video ©
In 1990, noted palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould spoke at the Royal Ontario Museum about the fossils of the Burgess Shale. While many of Gould’s interpretations have been challenged, his talk provides a snapshot of how the organisms were viewed then. (6:20)
So this is Marrella. I should say that arthropods are classified primarily by numbers of segments and patterns in their various body parts.
And here’s Marrella, it’s an arthropod that doesn’t fit into any group. It has these two sets of spines… there it is. It doesn’t have any allegiance.
So Whittington was puzzled when he first published on Marrella in 1971 but he went on and the next creature he studied was Yohoia.
Looked like a shrimp, had been called one by Walcott, and again, as Whittington studied it with care, it just didn’t fit into any modern group. It looks like a shrimp superficially, but when you start counting the segments you don’t have anything like the crustacean body plan.
For instance, up in the head you have this unique set of frontal appendages which have no homologue anywhere else in the arthropods. Whittington ended up calling them simply “the great appendages” because he didn’t know what to do with them.
This is Odaraia, a creature that swims on its back and has a tail fluke that looks more like a whale than an arthropod, but again, not allied to anything.
Looked vaguely like a swimming crustacean, but isn’t when you look at the segments and their patterns of the tail.
This is Sidneyia, which was described by Walcott as a chelicerate, that is a member of the horseshoe crab, eventually the spider-scorpion group. And in some superficial sense that’s what it looks like. But in detail it isn’t.
All chelicerates have six pairs of appendages on their head. Sidneyia has one pair. It’s not like anything… just these antennae… it’s not like anything else… it is just is what it is.
This is Habelia, an odd creature…
… with tubercules all over its body.
This is Leanchoilia, my personal favourite for elegance, but not among the survivors.
Again, these odd great appendages, as Whittington calls them, with their whiplash endings.
This is Aysheaia.
Now, this creature is probably an onychophore, that is it is a member of a modern group symbolized by the genus with the wonderful name Peripatus, which is a not very well known group, but it’s thought to be possibly intermediary between annelids and arthropods and may be the ancestor of the insect group. So here we may have a creature that is truly related to one of the surviving groups of arthropods.
And here is a form that Des Collins found and initially gave a field name, following paleontological tradition…
… he called it “Santa Claws”. And eventually named it Sanctacaris, which means much the same thing. Now again, does it look any different than the ones I just showed you?
Would you have picked out this creature for success? Could you have predicted that this, by virtue of superiority would go on? Yet it looks as though Sanctacaris really is a chelicerate.
There are six pairs of appendages in the right place on the head so this animal may be at least a cousin to one of the successful lineages. Again, would you have known? Could anyone have known?
This is Opabinia. Opabinia, I think, should stand as one of the great moments in the history of human knowledge.
Because Opabinia, which was described as an arthropod, a shrimp-like creature, by Walcott, who shoehorned it into modern groups as he always did. Opabinia was the first creature re-studied by Whittington that broke the conceptual dam, so to speak, and gave insights into this new world.
Because Whittington began his studies in the early 1970s on Opabinia thinking it would be an arthropod. He realizes, as Walcott did not, that there was some three-dimensionality in these creatures, that they were not just films on the rock.
That he could therefore dissect through and find structures underneath. So he said “Now I can resolve this, I’ll dissect through the body and find the appendages underneath which will prove its arthropod nature. He dissected through and he found nothing. There are no appendages.
And as he reconstructed Opabinia, he came to understand it is not an arthropod, it is some bizarre creature of its own unique anatomy. And in publishing a monograph on Opabinia in 1975 I think you have the breakthrough point in the new interpretation of the Burgess Shale.
Here is Marianne’s picture of Opabinia, a bizarre creature with five-count them, five-eyes, this vacuum-cleaner like nozzle with a food-collecting device in front, this bellows-like apparatus behind, followed by a tail. I don’t know what it is. It’s just weird.
This is Nectocaris, a peculiar creature that looks like a chordate behind, combined with a fin ray…
… and more like an octopod in the front. Who knows?
This is Dinomischus, a peculiar, stalked, stemmed creature…
… with no known affinity to anything else.
This is Odontogriphus, literally meaning “the toothed mystery” a good name.
A flat, gelatinous, annulated creature with a row of tooth-like structures surrounding a mouth and a pair of sensory palps.
Walcott described three separate genera which he allocated, as was his wont, according to the shoehorn, into three conventional groups.
This animal he called a jellyfish and called Peytoia.
This creature he called a sea cucumber and called Laggania.
And this, which had been described before and looks like the body of an arthropod, he called (it had been named before) Anomalocaris, meaning “the odd shrimp”. Well I think that you’ve guessed it already.
It turns out that all three go together. They form a single creature which is one of the weirdest of all the odd animals of the Burgess.
It’s also the largest Cambrian organism. Some specimens are almost a metre in length.
The so-called jellyfish is the mouth of this creature, working on a circular, nutcracker principle rather than the jaw of vertebrates principle.
The Anomalocaris itself turns out to be one of a pair of feeding appendages, and the so-called sea cucumber is the body of the whole animal.
SUMMARY: ROM First Expedition to the Burgess Shale 1975 (0:42)
DESCRIPTION: Helicopter preparing for takeoff
DESCRIPTION: Pile of equipment with helicopter leaving
DESCRIPTION: Tents overlooking valley filled with clouds
DESCRIPTION: Sign with mountain in background
Notice board beside trail to Walcott Quarry
DESCRIPTION: Snow-covered side of mountain
DESCRIPTION: Two men cutting a rock with a saw
DESCRIPTION: Helicopter with mesh bag
DESCRIPTION: Side of mountain Last day at the Walcott Quarry (Sept. 4th, 1975)
SUMMARY: Desmond Collins, former Curator of Invertebrate Palaeontology at the Royal Ontario Museum, spoke in 1991 about his early work on the Burgess Shale. (1:14)
DESCRIPTION: Desmond Collins, addresses the camera
“I first came out here in 1972 as part of an International Geological Congress field trip associated with a meeting in Montreal. The party of paleontologists was taken up to the quarry and I noticed I the talus beneath Walcott’s quarry there were better specimens than we had in our collections. And since we were planning at that time to put up a new display at the museum in Toronto, I requested from Parks Canada permission to come out and collect material for display. After some problems we finally got permission in 1975, and brought out a party of 8 people and we collected from the talus, both from beneath Walcott’s quarry, beneath Raymond’s Quarry and also on the slopes a bit to the south, in the naturally eroded material. And this material, which included a fair few species of rare and new forms indicated to us there was probably at least one or more layers of fossils yet unfound on the same slope, probably above Walcott’s quarry. And this was the locality which we found in 1984 and excavated in 1988, 1989 and 1990.”
Working at the Sanctacaris locality on Mount Stephen 1983 (0:42)
DESCRIPTION: Helicopter lifting wooden frame off ground
DESCRIPTION: Aerial view of helicopter with wooden frame
DESCRIPTION: Group of men carrying wooden frame up hill
DESCRIPTION: Men sitting
DESCRIPTION: Men working on side of mountain
DESCRIPTION: Fossil on stone, beside quarter for size comparison
DESCRIPTION: Fossil on stone, beside quarter for size comparison
DESCRIPTION: Fossil on stone, beside quarter for size comparison
SUMMARY: Excavating above Walcott and Raymond Quarries (later named the Collins Quarry) 1984 and 1988 (1:12)
DESCRIPTION: Helicopter drops off supplies
DESCRIPTION: Workers splitting blocks of shale
DESCRIPTION: Workers pose with ROM flag
DESCRIPTION: Workers writing down records
DESCRIPTION: Aerial view of mountainside
DESCRIPTION: Location of camp on mountain
DESCRIPTION: Workers in quarry
DESCRIPTION: Several fossil slabs with fossils circled
DESCRIPTION: Expedition leader talks with tourists
DESCRIPTION: Side of mountain
DESCRIPTION: Workers split rocks
DESCRIPTION: Snowy scene in camp
DESCRIPTION: Camp snowed in
DESCRIPTION: Expedition poses with ROM flag in snow
SUMMARY: Aerial view of flying in to Walcott Quarry in 1990 (0:51)
DESCRIPTION: View from helicopter flying towards Fossil Ridge with Walcott and Raymond quarries coming into view
DESCRIPTION: ROM camp in Walcott Quarry
Video © Canadian Wilderness Video Productions
ROM Field Expedition 1990 (0:26)
DESCRIPTION: Men digging deep snowbank
DESCRIPTION: Men sitting around quarry
DESCRIPTION: Man using saw on rock
DESCRIPTION: Man using crowbar to pry apart slabs of rock
DESCRIPTION: Man using crowbar to pry apart slabs of rock
© Royal Ontario Museum
SUMMARY: Sceneries and camp life. (1:56)
DESCRIPTION: Palaeontologists on trail toward Fossil Ridge
DESCRIPTION: View of Whisky-Jack Falls
DESCRIPTION: Palaeontologists at the Trilobite Beds on Mount Stephen, picking
DESCRIPTION: Heavy fog rolls up side of mountain
DESCRIPTION: Workers on side of mountain in fog
DESCRIPTION: Field town site on Kicking Horse River, from the Trilobite Beds on Mount Stephen
DESCRIPTION: View of ROM campsite below Fossil Ridge
DESCRIPTION: Fossil Ridge, shot from ROM camp with tent in foreground
DESCRIPTION: Workers in camp, looking at fossils
DESCRIPTION: Des Collins, former Curator of Invertebrate Palaeontology at the Royal Ontario Museum, cooking dinner in tent
DESCRIPTION: Relaxing in tents
Video © Canadian Wilderness Video Productions
SUMMARY: Palaeontologist Terry Fletcher discusses his impressions of the Burgess Shale in 1992. (0:38)
DESCRIPTION: Terry Fletcher speaking to camera in 1992
“Well the more I see of the Burgess Shale, the more I feel I’ve seen it somewhere else. It’s clearly just the soft-bodied fossils, the magnificent preservation of some of the fossils. 90 per cent, you become rather blasé, having been here several years and you say “Oh, yeah, I’ve seen that before.” But every day, one, maybe, spectacular specimen is turned out. Yesterday we had another example of a specimen turning up, and I think there’s only one other specimen known to compare with it. Those are the sort of days that you’ll remember here.”
SUMMARY: Palaeontologist Peter Allison offers some thoughts about reconstructing the environment of the Burgess Shale in 1992. (0:30)
DESCRIPTION: Peter Allison speaking to camera in 1992
“If you want to try to understand how an organism lived, if you want to reconstruct it, you’ve got to be able to understand what environment it lived in. Previously everyone thought all of these organisms lived elsewhere and were transported in. Everybody had the idea that you had to have anoxia to have fossil preservation. We now know that’s not the case. So some of these organisms could have lived here, and that would affect the way that they are reconstructed, potentially.”
ROM Field Expedition 1991-1993 (1:32)
DESCRIPTION: Helicopter with sling approaches snowy mountainside
DESCRIPTION: Workers unload supplies in the Walcott Quarry
DESCRIPTION: Workers looking through rocks in quarry
DESCRIPTION: with rainbow in background
DESCRIPTION: Goat on mountainside
DESCRIPTION: Researcher using hammer on rock
DESCRIPTION: Side of mountain
DESCRIPTION: Side of mountain
DESCRIPTION: Workers look through rocks
DESCRIPTION: Workers look through rocks
DESCRIPTION: Workers sort large bags
DESCRIPTION: Goats stare at workers in quarry
DESCRIPTION: Workers pose in Raymond Quarry with fossil
DESCRIPTION: View of quarry from a distance
DESCRIPTION: Workers use prybars on large rock slab
DESCRIPTION: use prybars to separate slabs
DESCRIPTION: Workers study slabs for fossils
DESCRIPTION: Expedition leader poses in front of quarry
Desmond Collins in Raymond Quarry, 1993
SUMMARY: An overview of the 1994 excavation at Walcott Quarry. (3:02)
DESCRIPTION: Worker in quarry uses sledgehammer and chisel to split rock
DESCRIPTION: Desmond Collins, former Curator of Invertebrate Palaeontology at the Royal Ontario Museum and expedition leader, standing in quarry, speaks to camera
“One of the difficulties this year is we find that the Phyllopod Bed-type lithology, which is dark, silvery stuff, tends to break up into rather small pieces. So we’re having difficulty getting large slabs. Walcott had very few large slabs and I’ve always thought that was poor of him, but I guess we’re finding now that this is actually a function of the rock itself. It’s very difficult to get large surfaces with lots of fossils on them. The rock tends to break up into smaller pieces.”
DESCRIPTION: Workers in quarry clearing rocks
“Behind where the guys are working, the rock, the loose material, the talus at the top is material from our excavation of the last two or three years, which has just slid down into the quarry over the winter. Below that, and above the floor where they’re shoveling, is a five-feet thickness, and that’s debris at the bottom of Walcott’s old quarry and this is material which accumulated soon after Walcott left and partly while he was here. So this is the first time we’ve exhumed this particular part of Walcott’s quarry. And four to five feet above the floor of the present quarry is the solid rock which bears taking away in order to get to the fossil layers.”
DESCRIPTION: Des Collins standing in quarry, speaks to camera
“Overall it looks like it’s going to be a good season, we’ve collected more fossils this year than in any previous season, I think partly because the weather’s been very good. We’ve had six weeks of sunshine, which helps a great deal. This particular day is probably the worst day we’ve had this summer. But overall, it looks like we’re finding new material, plus rare specimens of other species that have yet to be properly described and we should get a much clearer idea of the animals of the Burgess Shale as a result of this season.”
DESCRIPTION: worker running down side of mountain
DESCRIPTION: worker running down side of mountain
DESCRIPTION: later in evening, shadows lengthen as workers talk
DESCRIPTION: young child plays with fossil storage can
Video © Canadian Wilderness Video Productions
SUMMARY: Desmond Collins, former Curator of Invertebrate Palaeontology at the Royal Ontario Museum and expedition leader, describes the rock layers in Walcott Quarry. (2:11)
DESCRIPTION: Des Collins speaks to camera standing in Walcott’s Quarry
“I’m standing on the floor of Walcott’s old quarry from 1917 and earlier. So the phyllopod bed is about seven foot six from my feet to about up in here somewhere.”
DESCRIPTION: Collins gestures to a layer of rock above his head
“The bottom four feet of the phyllopod bed are the most important ones from the point of view of fossils. There are four individual layers that Walcott called the great Eldonia layer. Next, two layers down was the great Canadapsis layer, and then layer 10 was no name, but it was full of a variety of things. And finally, at about my feet, was the great Marrella layer, where most of the unusual soft-bodied forms were found. In the past we’ve never been able to know exactly where we were because these layers differ a little bit in thickness. But there’s nothing distinctive about them to show them from the front. So when Tim Sullivan started drilling in here, as you can see from the drill marks, and then split out this slab showing all these lovely Eldonias.”
DESCRIPTION: Collins picks up a large slab of rock and indicates fossil
“You can see a particularly fine specimen here. You can see its jellyfish-shape with the apron, and then this dark ring here is the gut. At the end of the gut you can sometimes see the feeding tentacles. But you can see there’s several: there’s one here, there’s one here, there’s one here …”
DESCRIPTION: Collins points to different fossils
“That there’s several on this, what Walcott called the Great Eldonia layer and obviously that’s what it was.”
DESCRIPTION: Collins on camera
“Now the great Eldonia layer is also important because it’s the only one where Eldonia occurs commonly, they’re rare at other levels, and it’s only about two inches thick. So it makes a very good marker bed. It’s the best marker bed in the phyllopod bed. So having discovered this now, we’re now going to mark this along the quarry wall and we’re going to measure everything else from this particular level. So Eldonia is doing us a double favour, one providing us with some very nice fossils of an animal which is very rare and very rarely preserved, because of course they’re exclusively soft-bodies, and secondly because we can now use it as a local marker bed for our work here.”
Video © Canadian Wilderness Video Production
Re-Opening the Walcott Quarry 1994 (0:52)
DESCRIPTION: Aerial shot of mountainside
DESCRIPTION: Two men using jackhammer
DESCRIPTION: Workers shovel rocks out of quarry
DESCRIPTION: Workers taking break in quarry
DESCRIPTION: Measuring tape indicates rock depth
DESCRIPTION: Large, reassembled fossil on several slabs
DESCRIPTION: Marmot in quarry
DESCRIPTION: Expedition leader sitting at table
DESCRIPTION: Shot of cleaned quarry
DESCRIPTION: Aerial view of quarries
© Royal Ontario Museum
Working the Walcott Quarry 1995 (0:54)
DESCRIPTION: Workers in quarry
DESCRIPTION: Worker shoveling snow from quarry
DESCRIPTION: Workers taking a break in quarry
DESCRIPTION: Man poses in quarry with prybar
DESCRIPTION: Mountain goat in quarry
DESCRIPTION: A group of goats passes by a worker
DESCRIPTION: Woman and man pose with fossil
DESCRIPTION: Large fossil slab
DESCRIPTION: Worker looking in rocks at edge of quarry
DESCRIPTION: View of quarry
DESCRIPTION: Expedition members pose with ROM flag
© Royal Ontario Museum
ROM Field Expedition 1997 (0:22)
DESCRIPTION: Workers in quarry with goat nearby
DESCRIPTION: Two men pose with fossil
DESCRIPTION: Goat rests above men working in quarry
DESCRIPTION: Wide shot of mountainside, showing quarries
SUMMARY: 1998 ROM team excavating for fossils at Walcott Quarry. (3:27)
DESCRIPTION: Worker in quarry with gas powered drill (Cobra)
DESCRIPTION: Close-up as hole is drilled in rock
DESCRIPTION: Pan across face of quarry showing drill holes
DESCRIPTION: Workers in quarry checking rocks for fossils
DESCRIPTION: Workers clear rock fragments
DESCRIPTION: Worker uses sledge hammer to drive spike into rock
DESCRIPTION: Worker uses sledge hammer on large rock, fails to split it
DESCRIPTION: Worker uses chisel on large rock, splits it and looks for fossils within
DESCRIPTION: Worker uses large chisel to split rock, throws slab away down side of mountain
DESCRIPTION: Worker uses sledge hammer to drive spike into rock
DESCRIPTION: Chipping small fragments off rock
DESCRIPTION: Close-up shot of splitting rock with chisel, showing how fracture forms
DESCRIPTION: Worker finds fossil, shows it to camera
Video © Canadian Wilderness Video Productions
ROM Field Expedition 1998 (1:02)
DESCRIPTION: Workers clearing debris from quarry
DESCRIPTION: Campsite with mountains in background
DESCRIPTION: Workers in quarry
DESCRIPTION: Worker uses jackhammer on rocks in quarry
DESCRIPTION: Mountains in distance
DESCRIPTION: In quarry
DESCRIPTION: Line of goats walks above the quarry
DESCRIPTION: Workers use pry bar to move rock slab
DESCRIPTION: Two workers use hammers on slab
DESCRIPTION: Goat oversees workers
DESCRIPTION: Two workers look for fossil
DESCRIPTION: Worker splits rock with spectacular view
SUMMARY: Excavating in Walcott Quarry in 1999. (1:36)
DESCRIPTION: Pan from Emerald Lake to workers in quarry
DESCRIPTION: Close-up of worker looking for fossil fragments
DESCRIPTION: Wide shot of workers in quarry
DESCRIPTION: Workers cleaning rocks with brushes
DESCRIPTION: Slow push-in on worker cleaning trilobite fossil with brush and water
DESCRIPTION: Workers in quarry hammering rocks
DESCRIPTION: Workers splitting pieces of rock with hammers
DESCRIPTION: Pan of quarry, showing workers cleaning rocks
DESCRIPTION: Pan up to top of quarry, man emerges from green tent
Video © Canadian Wilderness Video Productions
ROM Field Expedition at Walcott Quarry 1999 (1:02)
DESCRIPTION: 3 tents in a snowy plain
DESCRIPTION: Shot of campsite with snow
DESCRIPTION: Workers stand in snow
DESCRIPTION: View of campsite in snow from Walcott Quarry
DESCRIPTION: Workers clearing snow from quarry
DESCRIPTION: Workers clearing snow from the floor of quarry
DESCRIPTION: Quarry
DESCRIPTION: Workers in quarry
DESCRIPTION: Foggy day in quarry
DESCRIPTION: Goat stares at workers in quarry
DESCRIPTION: Sunset in the Rockies
DESCRIPTION: Aerial view of quarry
ROM Field Expedition to Walcott Quarry 2000 (0:51)
DESCRIPTION: Helicopter preparing for takeoff
DESCRIPTION: Workers sit around camp in snow
DESCRIPTION: Workers dig heavy snowfall
DESCRIPTION: Using rope saw to cut snow
DESCRIPTION: Side of mountain
DESCRIPTION: Two men pose in quarry
DESCRIPTION: Shot of quarry showing extent of excavation
DESCRIPTION: Team poses with ROM flag
DESCRIPTION: Rainy, foggy view of quarry
DESCRIPTION: Side of mountain
SUMMARY: Overview of the 2008 expedition at Stanley Glacier. (4:49)
DESCRIPTION: Researchers in helicopter, looking out windows
DESCRIPTION: View of mountains from helicopter
DESCRIPTION: View from ground as helicopter flies away
DESCRIPTION: Researchers walking in valley covered with small stones, patches of snow
DESCRIPTION: Sides of valley showing bare rock and piles of rubble
DESCRIPTION: Wide shot showing researchers hiking across boulder-strewn landscape
DESCRIPTION: Researchers use hammers and chisels to split rock
DESCRIPTION: Shot of excavation site showing tools and water jug
DESCRIPTION: Close up shot of researchers finding fossils
DESCRIPTION: Researchers having lunch
DESCRIPTION: Close-up of rock saw cutting into slab of rock
DESCRIPTION: Jean-Bernard Caron, Curator of Invertebrate Palaeontology at the Royal Ontario Museum and expedition leader uses rock saw to slice out square of rock, hands it to another researcher who shows it to the camera
“Let’s see, pull it up next to your face, extreme close-up.”
DESCRIPTION: Researchers study rock slabs for fossils
DESCRIPTION: Researchers studying rocks
DESCRIPTION: Researchers uses magnifying glass on rocks
DESCRIPTION: Wrapping fossils in newspaper, Caron speaks
“So Jason is wrapping fossils, just like Walcott used to do”
DESCRIPTION: Allison Daley puts wrapped rocks in cloth bag
“I’m just packing up some samples of carbonate rocks that Mikhail is going to dissolve and try to find some small shelly fossils in. So lots of projects going on.”
DESCRIPTION: Helicopter flies in to valley
DESCRIPTION: Researcher attaches netting bag filled with equipment to helicopter, which takes off and flies away
DESCRIPTION: View of Stanley Glacier from helicopter as it flies away, showing glacier on the side of mountain
© Royal Ontario Museum
SUMMARY: ROM expedition hikes up to the Walcott Quarry in 2008. (6:15)
DESCRIPTION: Palaeontologists with backpacks hike along trail, passing the Whisky-Jack waterfall
DESCRIPTION: Jean-Bernard Caron, Curator of Invertebrate Palaeontology at the Royal Ontario Museum and expedition leader, talks to camera as he hikes along
“We’re leading this trip up to the Burgess Shale, to the Walcott Quarry.”
DESCRIPTION: Camera pans to waterfall, back to Caron
“This side of the mountain is the north face of Wapta and Mount Field. This is a long hike, but we should be getting to the Walcott Quarry in about 2 or 3 hours.”
DESCRIPTION: Palaeontologists stand in front of bulletin board
DESCRIPTION: Point of view shot walking along trail
DESCRIPTION: Distant shot of waterfall
DESCRIPTION: Palaeontologists walking along trail, crest small hill
DESCRIPTION: Wildflowers, hikers stop to photograph them
DESCRIPTION: Signboard advertising the Wapta Highline Trail
DESCRIPTION: Pull back from large waterfall (below The Vice President)
DESCRIPTION: Marmot suns itself on a rock, hikers stop to take pictures
DESCRIPTION: Palaeontologists pause for lunch break overlooking Emerald Lake
DESCRIPTION: Distant mountains as Caron provides description
“You can see Mount Stephen, and here in the middle of the frame, Mount Field, and then in the background the talus and Fossil Ridge, with the Walcott Quarry. We’ll approach this quarry from the North, and the next stop will be at Walcott’s camp.”
DESCRIPTION: Clearing in forest as Caron provides description
“This is where the ROM used to have its campground from about the middle of the 90s to about 2000. These expeditions to the Burgess Shale were led by Desmond Collins and usually were attended by about 7 or 8 field assistants. Today you don’t see any traces of the camp.”
DESCRIPTION: Palaeontologists stand on rocky slope, taking pictures
DESCRIPTION: Palaeontologists study rocks, looking for fossils
DESCRIPTION: Palaeontologists picking up rocks, looking for fossils
DESCRIPTION: Caron, standing on mountain slope provides description
“Walcott probably took this trail in 1909 and probably discovered fossils in this area. All these rocks that you can see around you – the slabs – come from the talus”
DESCRIPTION: Pan up side of mountain showing talus and outcrops of rock as Caron provides description
“that has been carried away by snow and avalanches from higher up in the outcrop. But in 1909 we did not know about the outcrop and Walcott returned in 1910, when he discovered the main fossiliferous area.”
DESCRIPTION: Caron on camera
“Now we are standing on the trail just below the main quarries, and you can see some fossils.”
DESCRIPTION: Caron provides description of fossils discovered close to the trail below Walcott Quarry
“This is a fossil called Vauxia, it is a sponge, you can see several of them preserved on this slab, and you can see here there are several elements preserved on different slabs. You have fossils with soft tissues and you have fossils with hard shells.”
DESCRIPTION: Caron pulls out a slab of rock and gestures to several fossils
“Here there are several, smaller fossils of trilobites on this slab. In fact, if you look closer at all these slabs, there are several fossils. So when Walcott was working, or was on his horse in 1909, with his anxious eyes, he was probably able to see all these fossils. They were probably much more abundant then than today.”
DESCRIPTION: Palaeontologists walk along path, past warning sign
DESCRIPTION: Side of mountain, showing quarry in distance with loose rocks scattered on mountainside, Caron comments
“Here you go, Walcott Quarry talus, and just above, the Raymond Quarry. We’re almost there.”
DESCRIPTION: Walcott Quarry with some snow in the bottom as Caron provides description
“The Walcott Quarry from the north side. There’s still a bit of snow inside, but we’re August 4, 2008. There’s a bit of snow still, not melted. And the huge piles of debris that were created during the ROM excavations and also from Walcott’s excavations earlier on.”
DESCRIPTION: View from within the Walcott Quarry, showing snow Caron comments
“And we enter this quarry from the north side.”
DESCRIPTION: Palaeontologist (Robert Gaines) opens backpack, removes camera
DESCRIPTION: Palaeontologists in quarry take pictures
© Royal Ontario Museum
SUMMARY: ROM Expedition to the S7 site on Mount Stephen 2010 (1:23)
DESCRIPTION : Broad valley surrounded by mountains
DESCRIPTION : Mountain, with glacier at top
DESCRIPTION : Close-up view of side of mountain
DESCRIPTION : Aerial view of mountain
DESCRIPTION : Tent on side of mountain
DESCRIPTION : Workers on trail on mountainside
DESCRIPTION : Camp on side of mountain, with valley behind
DESCRIPTION : Workers take break
DESCRIPTION : Woman in climbing harness on side of mountain
DESCRIPTION : Workers with rocksaw on side of mountain
DESCRIPTION : Slabs of cut rock
DESCRIPTION : Workers in quarry
DESCRIPTION : Side of mountain
DESCRIPTION : Rocky outcrops on mountain
DESCRIPTION : Wide shot of valley
DESCRIPTION : Camp on side of mountain
Northwestern shoulder of Mount Stephen 2010 (0:42)
ROM Expedition to Mount Odaray 2010 (1:07)
