Burgess Shale Hike
7/4/96
After finishing field
camp, my father picked me up in Rapid City, SD and we proceded to drive
around the continent, looking at all sorts of geology and wildlife
along the way. One of our stops was Field, BC. We didn't know
if we could make it up to the Walcott quarry since we are from Illinois
and wouldn't be used to the altitude so we signed up for the Mount
Stephen Fossil Beds hike. Remember, 1996 was colder than
usual so it was a good thing that we picked that one since when we got
there we found out that the hike to the Walcott quarry was closed off by snow, even though it was July.
It was an interesting experience to say the least! The very first thing that we had to do was go across a waterfall by going sideways along a fallen tree. It took awhile but everyone got across. It rained
all day and since the weathering product of shale is clay, it got rather
slippery. Everyone fell at least once and even with rain gear we
got completely soaked. I wouldn't have changed it a bit!
We made two stops,
one part way up and the other at the very top. All of the pictures
here with the exception of the one where my father is holding up the trilobite
face plates were taken at the top. While fossils are extremely common
there they aren't as concentrated as some of these photos would suggest. I deliberately placed them together for the pictures. The trilobites
are mostly Olenoides serratus and we saw a couple of Anomalocaris
sp. mouth appendages. I circled the Anomalocaris specimens
in the pictures. In some we used a Canadian dollar for
scale.
My now-husband and I tried to go on another hike in the summer of 1998 but it was cancelled. Someday!
We did make it to the Burgess Shale exhibit at the Royal
Tyrrell Museum and although it was kind of small it was very well done.
They also have a black light show that I would recommend if they have it this year.
For more Burgess
Shale pictures check out Andrew
MacRae's site. He has photos from the Walcott quarry.