The Fossil Find that changed everything!

No, we're not talking about Dinosaurs, or even the missing link for humans.

We're talking about the Burgess Shale Fauna.

Accidentally discovered in 1909, it remains the worlds most significant fossil discovery. Many of the fossils found at the fossil site appear to be early ancestors of higher lifeforms called cordates, a major group of animals that include human beings.

Prior to the find, scientists thought life in the Cambrian Sea (around 500 mya) consisted of a few Trilobites and Snails. Boy, were they wrong!! Watch the short video below.

With the fossils that were found, it was concluded that there was a "Cambrian Explosion of Life", with many of the Burgess Shale Fauna creatures probably being some of the first creatures to combine genetic traits to pass on. The pictures below are trace fossils of two of the fauna. With these creatures, life in the sea exploded with a great diversity of animals, and probably gave rise to all "cordates" or creatures with backbones!

Well, they say most great scientific discoveries are found by accident, and this was no exception. In 1909, a scientist was riding on a trail in the Canadian Rockies, and happened to look at a stone by the side of the trail, and saw something shiny. It was a fossil of one of the Burgess Creatures, and the rest, as they say, is history.