Media Releases

Researchers discover ‘epic’ new Burgess Shale site in Canada’s Kootenay National Park

February 11, 2014

KOOTENAY NATIONAL PARK, BRITISH COLUMBIA - Yoho Nation­al Park’s 505-mil­lion-year-old Burgess Shale – home to some of the planet’s ear­li­est ani­mals, includ­ing a very prim­i­tive human rel­a­tive – is one of the world’s most impor­tant fos­sil sites. Now, more than a cen­tu­ry after its dis­cov­ery, a com­pelling sequel has been unearthed: 42 kilo­me­tres away in Koote­nay Nation­al Park, a new Burgess Shale fos­sil site has been locat­ed that appears to equal the impor­tance of the orig­i­nal dis­cov­ery, and may one day even sur­pass it.

The find was made in the sum­mer of 2012 by a team from the Roy­al Ontario Muse­um (ROM, Jean-Bernard Caron), Pomona Col­lege (Robert Gaines), the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to (Jean-Bernard Caron, Cédric Aria), the Uni­ver­si­ty of Saskatchewan (Gabriela Mángano) and Upp­sala Uni­ver­si­ty (Michael Streng).

A paper pub­lished today in the pres­ti­gious sci­en­tif­ic jour­nal Nature Com­mu­ni­ca­tions describes Koote­nay Nation­al Park’s new ‘Mar­ble Canyon’ fos­sil beds for the first time. The authors sug­gest that the area and its extra­or­di­nary fos­sils will great­ly fur­ther our under­stand­ing of the sud­den explo­sion of ani­mal life dur­ing the Cam­bri­an Peri­od.

The new fos­sil site is pro­tect­ed by Parks Cana­da, with the exact loca­tion remain­ing con­fi­den­tial to pro­tect its integri­ty, though future vis­i­tor oppor­tu­ni­ties have not been ruled out. The ROM is espe­cial­ly proud of this dis­cov­ery as it comes in a year the orga­ni­za­tion cel­e­brates its 100th anniver­sary.

Quick Facts

  • This new find­ing is the lat­est in a recent string of Burgess Shale dis­cov­er­ies, includ­ing con­fir­ma­tion that Pika­ia, found only in Yoho Nation­al Park, is the most prim­i­tive known ver­te­brate and there­fore the ances­tor of all descen­dant ver­te­brates, includ­ing humans.
  • In over 100 years of research, approx­i­mate­ly 200 ani­mal species have been iden­ti­fied at the orig­i­nal Burgess Shale dis­cov­ery in Yoho Nation­al Park in over 600 field days. In just 15 days of field col­lect­ing, 50 ani­mal species have already been unearthed at the new Koote­nay Nation­al Park site.
  • Some species found at the new Koote­nay site are also found in China’s famous Chengjiang fos­sil beds, which are 10 mil­lion years old­er. This con­tributes to the pool of evi­dence sug­gest­ing that the local and world­wide dis­tri­b­u­tion of Cam­bri­an ani­mals, as well as their longevi­ty, might have been under­es­ti­mat­ed.

Explore and Dis­cov­er

  • Explore the ROM/Parks Cana­da award win­ning web­site about Burgess Shale
    www.burgess-shale.rom.on.ca
  • Dis­cov­er more about the Burgess Shale in Yoho and Koote­nay nation­al parks by vis­it­ing www.pc.gc.ca/burgessshale
  • Fol­low on Twit­ter with hash­tag #BurgessShale or fol­low @ParksCanada or @ROMToronto

Quotes

“This new dis­cov­ery is an epic sequel to a research sto­ry that began at the turn of the pre­vi­ous cen­tu­ry, and there is no doubt in my mind that this new mate­r­i­al will sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase our under­stand­ing of ear­ly ani­mal evo­lu­tion. The rate at which we are find­ing ani­mals – many of which are new – is aston­ish­ing, and there is a high pos­si­bil­i­ty that we’ll even­tu­al­ly find more species here than at the orig­i­nal Yoho Nation­al Park site, and poten­tial­ly more than from any­where else in the world. We are very excit­ed to go back to the field this sum­mer, dur­ing the ROM’s Cen­ten­ni­al year, with one of our main goals being to increase the num­ber of new species dis­cov­ered.”

Dr. Jean-Bernard Caron
Cura­tor of Inver­te­brate Pale­on­tol­ogy at the Roy­al Ontario Muse­um, Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to and the study’s lead author

“We were already aware of the pres­ence of some Burgess Shale fos­sils in Koote­nay Nation­al Park. We had a hunch that if we fol­lowed the for­ma­tion along the moun­tain topog­ra­phy into new areas with the right rock types, maybe, just maybe, we would get lucky – though we nev­er in our wildest dreams thought we’d track down a moth­er­load like this. It didn’t take us very long at all to real­ize that we had dug up some­thing spe­cial. To me, the Burgess Shale is a grand tale in every way imag­in­able, and we are incred­i­bly proud to be part of this new chap­ter and to keep the sto­ry alive and thriv­ing in everyone’s imag­i­na­tion.”

Dr. Robert Gaines
Geol­o­gist, Pomona Col­lege

“The Burgess Shale is a tremen­dous­ly rich resource impor­tant to our under­stand­ing of the devel­op­ment of life on this plan­et. Parks Cana­da is immense­ly proud to pro­vide access to the fos­sils for cut­ting edge research such as this, for our award-win­ning guid­ed hikes, and to pro­tect for­ev­er these fos­sils in a nation­al park and UNESCO World Her­itage Site.”

Melanie Kwong
Parks Canada’s Super­in­ten­dent respon­si­ble for the Burgess Shale

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Jour­nal Arti­cle

Relat­ed Online Prod­ucts

Con­tacts

Dr. Jean-Bernard Caron (bilin­gual – Eng­lish-French)
Cura­tor of Inver­te­brate Palaeon­tol­ogy, Roy­al Ontario Muse­um
Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor in the Depart­ment of Ecol­o­gy and Evo­lu­tion­ary Biol­o­gy and the Depart­ment of Earth Sci­ences, Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to
416 586 5593; jcaron@rom.on.ca

Dr. Robert Gaines
Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Geol­o­gy, Pomona Col­lege
Office: 909 621 8674, Cell: 909 451 3073; robert.gaines@pomona.edu

Dr. Michael Streng
Depart­ment of Earth Sci­ences, Upp­sala Uni­ver­si­ty
+46 70–9622588 or +46 18–4712579; michael.streng@geo.uu.se

David McK­ay
Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Coor­di­na­tor
Roy­al Ontario Muse­um
416 586 5559; davidm@rom.on.ca

Jen­nifer Thoma
Media Rela­tions Spe­cial­ist
Uni­ver­si­ty of Saskatchewan
306–966-1851; jennifer.thoma@usask.ca

Omar McDa­di (bilin­gual – Eng­lish-French)
Pub­lic Rela­tions and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Offi­cer
Yoho and Koote­nay nation­al parks
403 760 1090; omar.mcdadi@pc.gc.ca