The
paleontologist who discovered the Burgess Shale in 1909 was so impressed with
the extent and diversity of the layers of fossils, that he returned over a
dozen times, finding more life forms every time. Over the years the Geologic
Survey of Canada and the Royal Ontario Museum got involved and many additional
outcrops have been found, stratigraphically both higher and lower than the
original. These layers continue to yield new organisms faster than they can be
studied.
Here is
an explanation of the haiku on the painting of Emerald Lake and the Burgess Shale, above:
Line 1:
Shale stores ‘fossil fuel’ energy.
Line 2:
Paleoclimatologists studying fossil records found a rapid acceleration in the
diversification of complex organisms during the Cambrian Explosion, a period
half a billion years ago, during which most major phyla in existence today
appeared.
Line 3:
When researchers understand the climate of time of the Cambrian Explosion and
its effects, this could add synergistically to their ability to predict
long-term future effects of the range and rate of climate change.
