A MIDDLE CAMBRIAN SMALL SHELLY FAUNA FROM CARBONATE MEMBERS OF THE BURGESS SHALE FORMATION, BRITISH COLUMBIA

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy Virmani ◽  
◽  
Paul A. Johnston
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Burgess Shale ◽  
Middle Cambrian ◽  
Shale Formation

Polypleuraspis (Arthropoda, Trilobita) from the middle Cambrian (Miaolingian Series) around Kane Basin (Nunavut and Greenland)

2020 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-24
Author(s):  
John S. Peel
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
New Species ◽  
North American ◽  
Type Species ◽  
Wood Formation ◽  
Ellesmere Island ◽  
Burgess Shale ◽  
Middle Cambrian ◽  
Shale Formation ◽  
A New Species

Polypleuraspis Poulsen, 1927, originally established on the basis of a single trilobite pygidium from the Cape Wood Formation of Inglefield Land, northwestern Greenland, is redescribed on the basis of material from additional occurrences in the Cape Wood and Telt Bugt formations exposed around Kane Basin in Ellesmere Island (Nunavut) and northern and northwestern Greenland. Polypleuraspis occurs together with Glossopleura Poulsen, 1927 in the Glossopleura walcotti Poulsen, 1927 Biozone of the Delamaran Stage of North American (Laurentian) usage, in middle Cambrian strata (Miaolingian Series) of the Wuliuan Stage. The type species, Polypleuraspis solitaria Poulsen, 1927, is compared with Polypleuraspis insignis Rasetti, 1951 from the Stephen Formation (Burgess Shale Formation) of British Columbia and to a new species from the Telt Bugt Formation of Daugaard-Jensen Land: Polypleuraspis glacialis sp. nov. Polypleuraspis cooperi Robison and Babcock, 2011, from the Spence Shale of Utah of similar age, is assigned to Polypleuraspidella gen. nov.

The “evolution” of Anomalocaris and its classification in the arthropod class Dinocarida (nov.) and order Radiodonta (nov.)

1996 ◽  
Vol 70 (2) ◽  
pp. 280-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Desmond Collins
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Sea Cucumber ◽  
Great Difficulty ◽  
Burgess Shale ◽  
Middle Cambrian ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many ◽  
Life On Earth ◽  
Mistaken Identification

The remarkable “evolution” of the reconstructions of Anomalocaris, the extraordinary predator from the 515 million year old Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale of British Columbia, reflects the dramatic changes in our interpretation of early animal life on Earth over the past 100 years. Beginning in 1892 with a claw identified as the abdomen and tail of a phyllocarid crustacean, parts of Anomalocaris have been described variously as a jellyfish, a sea-cucumber, a polychaete worm, a composite of a jellyfish and sponge, or have been attached to other arthropods as appendages. Charles D. Walcott collected complete specimens of Anomalocaris nathorsti between 1911 and 1917, and a Geological Survey of Canada party collected an almost complete specimen of Anomalocaris canadensis in 1966 or 1967, but neither species was adequately described until 1985. At that time they were interpreted by Whittington and Briggs to be representatives of “a hitherto unknown phylum.”Here, using recently collected specimens, the two species are newly reconstructed and described in the genera Anomalocaris and Laggania, and interpreted to be members of an extinct arthropod class, Dinocarida, and order Radiodonta, new to science. The long history of inaccurate reconstruction and mistaken identification of Anomalocaris and Laggania exemplifies our great difficulty in visualizing and classifying, from fossil remains, the many Cambrian animals with no apparent living descendants.

Palaeontology and depositional environments of ancient brine seeps in the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale at The Monarch, British Columbia, Canada

2009 ◽  
Vol 277 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 86-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul A. Johnston ◽  
Kimberley J. Johnston ◽  
Christopher J. Collom ◽  
Wayne G. Powell ◽  
Robyn J. Pollock
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Depositional Environments ◽  
Burgess Shale ◽  
Middle Cambrian

scholarly journals Presence of Naraoia Walcott, 1912 (Nektaspida, Arthropoda) in the middle Cambrian of Europe (Murero, NE Spain)

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 83
Author(s):  
Rodolfo Gozalo ◽  
Mª Eugenia Dies-Álvarez ◽  
José Antonio Gámez VIintaned ◽  
Juan B. Chirivella ◽  
Eladio Liñan
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
First Record ◽  
Early Cambrian ◽  
Burgess Shale ◽  
Evolutionary Potential ◽  
Middle Cambrian ◽  
The Family ◽  
Ne Spain

 The genus Naraoia Walcott, 1912, a Burgess Shale-type fossil known from the lower and middle Cambrian of British Columbia (Canada), Idaho and Utah (USA), as well as from Yunnan and Guizhou provinces (China), is now reported from the middle Cambrian of Murero (Zaragoza, Spain), which is the first record in the Acadobaltic province. The only fragmented specimen found is determined as Naraoia sp., its age being Pardailhania multispinosa Zone (Drumian Stage). This new datum reinforces the hypothesis of the existence of a cosmopolitan faunal substrate in early Cambrian times, which is to some extent refl ected in the mid Cambrian by faunal groups of low evolutionary potential as the family Naraoiidae and other soft-bodied fossil taxa.

The arthropod Sidneyia inexpectans , Middle Cambrian, Burgess Shale, British Columbia

1981 ◽  
Vol 295 (1079) ◽  
pp. 619-653 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Posterior Margin ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
The Body ◽  
Gut Contents ◽  
Burgess Shale ◽  
Dimensional Model ◽  
Three Dimensional Model ◽  
Middle Cambrian ◽  
Abdominal Somite

Old and new specimens of Sidneyia inexpectans have been studied and are accompanied by explanatory drawings and photographs. New reconstructions of the animal are given together with a three-dimensional model. The body consisted of a cephalon with a long backwardly directed doublure, a thorax of nine articulating somites, abdomen with cylindrical exoskeleton of two or three somites and a telson. A caudal fan was formed by a pair of uropods articulating at the posterior margin of the last abdominal somite. The cephalon had stalked eyes and preoral antennae but no walking or grasping appendages. The first four somites of the thorax had paired uniramous, prehensile walking legs attached to the body by broad coxae with spiny gnathobases. The coxae were smaller on the five posterior thoracic somites and the paired appendages were biramous, each bearing a gill supported on a flap attached at its proximal end to the first podomere of the leg. The coxa-body attachment resembles that of modern merostomes and is in advance of trilobites. Evidence suggests that Sidneyia was a bottom-living, carnivorous animal eating larger and harder food than trilobites. Gut contents include ostracodes, hyolithids, small trilobites and phosphatic debris. Sidneyia is the earliest known form which could be an ancestor to merostomes, but its body plan and absence of chelicera distinguishes Sidneyia from this group. The holotype of Amiella ornata Walcott, 1911 is reinterpreted and its synonomy with S. inexpectans is confirmed.

scholarly journals Extraordinary fossils reveal the nature of Cambrian life: a commentary on Whittington (1975) ‘The enigmatic animal Opabinia regalis , Middle Cambrian, Burgess Shale, British Columbia’

2015 ◽  
Vol 370 (1666) ◽  
pp. 20140313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek E. G. Briggs
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Early Evolution ◽  
Cambrian Explosion ◽  
Burgess Shale ◽  
Critical Interval ◽  
Middle Cambrian ◽  
Early Ordovician ◽  
History Of ◽  
350Th Anniversary

Harry Whittington's 1975 monograph on Opabinia was the first to highlight how some of the Burgess Shale animals differ markedly from those that populate today's oceans. Categorized by Stephen J. Gould as a ‘weird wonder’ ( Wonderful life , 1989) Opabinia , together with other unusual Burgess Shale fossils, stimulated ongoing debates about the early evolution of the major animal groups and the nature of the Cambrian explosion. The subsequent discovery of a number of other exceptionally preserved fossil faunas of Cambrian and early Ordovician age has significantly augmented the information available on this critical interval in the history of life. Although Opabinia initially defied assignment to any group of modern animals, it is now interpreted as lying below anomalocaridids on the stem leading to the living arthropods. This commentary was written to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society .

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