Canada is home to Burgess Shale : an heroic dodo line of business that contains a diverse regalia of preserved organisms date all the fashion back to the Middle Cambrian , 505 million years ago . There are two well - known sites : one in the Yoho National Park and another 42 kilometer ( 26 miles ) away at Kootenay National Park . Another situation has been light upon in Kootenay and could be the richest fossil web site ever attain . The announcement comes from lead author Jean - Bernard Caron of the University of Toronto and was write inNature Communications .
Burgess Shale was happen upon in 1909 and is world - renowned for its exceptionally well - preserve fossils . Over the last 100 of thorough geographic expedition , there have been about 200 different coinage key . Thisnew site , dubbed “ Marble Canyon , ” just might put that figure to ignominy .
researcher have only been digging at the site for 15 days but already more than 50 species have been identified - include some entirely fresh species . Thousands of specimens have been bring out , a gravid turn of whichappear to be arthropods .
The fossils fall upon at this site have much to teach us about the Cambrian Explosion , which is when life first really begin to diversify . Prior to the Cambrian life on Earth had been relatively simple . Among the arthropod coinage represented are some that had only been seen before in theChengjiang dodo bedsin China . Because fossils from that internet site stand for the early Welsh about 10 million long time prior , it gives new perceptivity to the global range of mountains of certain ancient fauna and assist to establish a timeline of how long the species lived . The situation also support thatPikaia , which was first find at the Yoho web site in 1911 and front quite similar to a modern lancet arch , is the common ancestor of all craniate .
Currently , the exact location of the new fossil site within the park has not been released , as the Canadian park officials wish to keep it gratis from visitor for the moment . The researchers have put forward that they are eager for summer to retort so that they may persist in their field work . Though metre and more archeological site will ultimately differentiate the full importance of this Modern Burgess Shale site , the preliminary numbers indicate that it is well on its way to becoming one of the most important fogy land site discoveries in the world .
