Researchers dig up 'stunning' fossils at Rocky Mountain site
By Bill Kaufmann, Calgary Sun
First posted: Wednesday, August 27, 2014 11:28 PM EDT | Updated: Thursday, August 28, 2014 06:46 AM EDT
Researchers wrapping up a summer of digging at a “stunning” Rocky Mountain fossil site say they’ve uncovered a dozen new animal species and a better understanding of early evolution.
The season’s work at the Marble Canyon Burgess Shale quarry in Kootenay National Park has also revealed the fabulous scope of the spot, said Jean-Bernard Caron, curator with the Royal Ontario Museum.
While other productive digs yield one impressive find a week, he said, “we’re finding excellent, absolutely stunning fossils almost every day. We could spend several years, another couple of seasons there.”
It’s the second full season — since the first in 2012 — the team of professionals and student volunteers have been cracking open rock shelves revealing 500-million-year-old imprints of anthropods and fish, amazingly well-preserved. The marine creatures were caught in a rapid mudslide, producing a sometimes three-dimensional fossils, said Caron.
“The preserved soft tissue is in excellent detail … sometimes we’re seeing their last meal,” he said.
Caron estimates the team this year has coaxed about 5,000 specimens out of the mountainside located at 2,000 metres above sea level.
Some of those have pushed the understanding of the origins of our own species, he said. One fossil fish, Caron said, preserves “what our most distant relatives might have looked like.”
Some of the artifacts will be on display at a major Tokyo exhibit next year.
The fossils will be on long-term loan from Parks Canada to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto where they’ll be further assessed and catalogued.
bill.kaufmann@sunmedia.ca
On Twitter: @SUNBillKaufmann
Fossil Arthropod from the Marble Canyon site in Kootenay National Park. Photo courtesy Todd Keith/Parks Canada
Researchers dig up 'stunning' fossils at Rocky Mountain site | Canada | News | T
By Bill Kaufmann, Calgary Sun
First posted: Wednesday, August 27, 2014 11:28 PM EDT | Updated: Thursday, August 28, 2014 06:46 AM EDT
Researchers wrapping up a summer of digging at a “stunning” Rocky Mountain fossil site say they’ve uncovered a dozen new animal species and a better understanding of early evolution.
The season’s work at the Marble Canyon Burgess Shale quarry in Kootenay National Park has also revealed the fabulous scope of the spot, said Jean-Bernard Caron, curator with the Royal Ontario Museum.
While other productive digs yield one impressive find a week, he said, “we’re finding excellent, absolutely stunning fossils almost every day. We could spend several years, another couple of seasons there.”
It’s the second full season — since the first in 2012 — the team of professionals and student volunteers have been cracking open rock shelves revealing 500-million-year-old imprints of anthropods and fish, amazingly well-preserved. The marine creatures were caught in a rapid mudslide, producing a sometimes three-dimensional fossils, said Caron.
“The preserved soft tissue is in excellent detail … sometimes we’re seeing their last meal,” he said.
Caron estimates the team this year has coaxed about 5,000 specimens out of the mountainside located at 2,000 metres above sea level.
Some of those have pushed the understanding of the origins of our own species, he said. One fossil fish, Caron said, preserves “what our most distant relatives might have looked like.”
Some of the artifacts will be on display at a major Tokyo exhibit next year.
The fossils will be on long-term loan from Parks Canada to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto where they’ll be further assessed and catalogued.
bill.kaufmann@sunmedia.ca
On Twitter: @SUNBillKaufmann
Fossil Arthropod from the Marble Canyon site in Kootenay National Park. Photo courtesy Todd Keith/Parks Canada
Researchers dig up 'stunning' fossils at Rocky Mountain site | Canada | News | T