The Burgess Shale

500 some million years ago the world was full of ‘abnormal shrimp’ and ‘blunt feet’ and other animals that defy comprehensible definitions. In this episode we talk all about the mind-boggling biology and bizarre geology of the Cambrian.

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CW: Drug references, cursing, dead animals, cavalier jokes at the expense of white men, dick jokes

References

Collom, C. J., Johnston, P. A., & Powell, W. G. (2009). Reinterpretation of ‘Middle’Cambrian stratigraphy of the rifted western Laurentian margin: Burgess Shale Formation and contiguous units (Sauk II megasequence), Rocky Mountains, Canada. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 277(1-2), 63-85.



McCormick, C. A., Corlett, H., Roberts, N. M., Johnston, P. A., Collom, C. J., Stacey, J., ... & Hollis, C. (2024). U-Pb geochronology reveals that hydrothermal dolomitization was coeval to the deposition of the Burgess Shale lagerstätte. Communications Earth & Environment, 5(1), 318.


Gaines, R. R., Hammarlund, E. U., Hou, X., Qi, C., Gabbott, S. E., Zhao, Y., ... & Canfield, D. E. (2012). Mechanism for Burgess Shale-type preservation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(14), 5180-5184. 


Gaines, R. R. (2014). Burgess Shale-type preservation and its distribution in space and time. The Paleontological Society Papers, 20, 123-146.



Brett, C. E., Allison, P. A., DeSantis, M. K., Liddell, W. D., & Kramer, A. (2009). Sequence stratigraphy, cyclic facies, and lagerstätten in the Middle Cambrian Wheeler and Marjum formations, Great Basin, Utah. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 277(1-2), 9-33. 


Powell, W. (2009). Comparison of geochemical and distinctive mineralogical features associated with the Kinzers and Burgess Shale formations and their associated units. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 277(1-2), 127-140. 


Zhang, X. G., & Hou, X. G. (2007). Gravitational constraints on the burial of Chengjiang fossils. Palaios, 22(4), 448-453. 

Fu, D., Tong, G., Dai, T., Liu, W., Yang, Y., Zhang, Y., ... & Zhang, X. (2019). The Qingjiang biota—a Burgess Shale–type fossil Lagerstätte from the early Cambrian of South China. Science, 363(6433), 1338-1342. 

Nanglu, K., Caron, J. B., & Gaines, R. R. (2020). The Burgess Shale paleocommunity with new insights from Marble Canyon, British Columbia. Paleobiology, 46(1), 58-81. 

Bath Enright, O. G., Minter, N. J., Sumner, E. J., Mángano, M. G., & Buatois, L. A. (2021). Flume experiments reveal flows in the Burgess Shale can sample and transport organisms across substantial distances. Communications Earth & Environment, 2(1), 104. 


Gabbott, S. E., Zalasiewicz, J., & Collins, D. (2008). Sedimentation of the phyllopod bed within the Cambrian Burgess Shale Formation of British Columbia. Journal of the Geological Society, 165(1), 307-318 

Gould, S. J. (1989). Wonderful life: the Burgess Shale and the nature of history. WW Norton & Company.

https://www.nature.com/articles/news.2011.121

https://evolution.berkeley.edu/the-arthropod-story/meet-the-cambrian-critters/opabinia/is-opabinia-an-arthropod/opabinia-a-unique-body-layout/ 

https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/jellyfish-fossil-1.6924274 

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2022.2490 

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/these-508-million-year-old-fossils-may-be-earths-oldest-swimming-jellyfish-180982639/