Scientists recently located a fossil site on the Alberta-B.C. border, which is already yielding major new discoveries about early animal evolution.
The Marble Canyon fossil beds were located in 2012 by a team of Canadian, U.S. and Swedish researchers in Kootenay National Park, about 40 kilometres from the 505-million-year-old Burgess Shale in YohoNational Park — which is considered one of the most important fossil fields in the world.
In a paper published Tuesday in the scientific journal Nature Communications, researchers reveal they unearthed 50 animal species in just 15 days exploring the new site.
“The rate at which we are finding animals — many of which are new — is astonishing, and there is a high possibility that we’ll eventually find more species here than at the original Yoho National Park site, and potentially more than from anywhere else in the world,” said the Royal Ontario Museum’s (ROM) Jean-Bernard Caron, who led the team.Stay tuned for more. N. Via: RichardDawkins.net