Ordovician faunas of Burgess Shale type

Peter Van Roy (), Patrick J. Orr, Joseph P. Botting, Lucy A. Muir, Jakob Vinther, Bertrand Lefebvre, Khadija el Hariri and Derek E. G. Briggs ()
Additional contact information
Peter Van Roy: Yale University, PO Box 208109, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA
Patrick J. Orr: UCD School of Geological Sciences, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland
Joseph P. Botting: Leeds Museum Discovery Centre, Carlisle Road, Leeds LS10 1LB, UK
Lucy A. Muir: 42 Birkhouse Lane, Moldgreen, Huddersfield HD5 8BE, UK
Jakob Vinther: Yale University, PO Box 208109, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA
Bertrand Lefebvre: UMR CNRS 5125 PEPS, bât. Géode, Université Lyon 1, Campus de la Doua, 2 Rue Dubois, F-69622 Villeurbanne cedex, France
Khadija el Hariri: Faculté des Sciences et Techniques-Guéliz, Université Cadi Ayyad, Avenue Abdelkrim el Khattabi BP 549, 40000 Marrakech, Morocco
Derek E. G. Briggs: Yale University, PO Box 208109, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA

Nature, 2010, vol. 465, issue 7295, 215-218

Abstract: A 'Burgess Shale-type' fauna from the Ordovician The Burgess Shale of British Columbia famously contains a remarkable variety of fossils of soft-bodied creatures from the Middle Cambrian of around 510 million years ago, offering a window on early animal life in the sea. Similar faunas are now known from localities as far apart as China and Greenland, but it was beginning to seem that such faunas had died out by the end of the Middle Cambrian. But no. A 'Burgess Shale-type' fauna has been found in the Lower and Upper Fezouata formations of Morocco, dating from about 480–472 million years ago in the Early Ordovician. Creatures of this type clearly persisted beyond the Cambrian — a persistence with as much to do with the chances of preserving soft-bodied fossils as with extinction and survival. The Fezouata biota provides a link between Burgess Shale communities and the early stages of the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event, one of the most dramatic episodes in the history of marine life previously represented almost exclusively by 'shelly' fossils.

Date: 2010
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DOI: 10.1038/nature09038

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