burgess shale
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.30 in modern English
18
Scrabble Score
12
Letters
1
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
name
A rock formation in the Canadian Rockies that contains very many fossils from the Cambrian period.
Example Sentences
- "At the time the Burgess Shale was laid down, life on land was pretty unexciting – there were a few primitive clubmosses and liverworts growing in wet areas near water, but little else. There would also have been a strand-line of washed-up plants and animals, edible detritus that was tantalisingly out of reach of the water-bound animals of the day. Inevitably, before long some arthropods began to drag themselves ashore to take advantage of these untapped resources. Their external skeletons, which perhaps originally evolved as a defence against predators, helped to support their bodies on land, giving them an edge in colonisation there over soft-bodied sea animals such as jellyfish and worms. To start with, these animals would presumably have been poorly waterproofed and had to return to water very regularly to prevent themselves drying out; or they would have had to stay in the dampest places, amongst rotting weed or damp moss. […] As the plants slowly adapted to life on land and spread away from the seas, they also grew taller as the competition for light intensified. To follow them, the animals had to improve their waterproofing. Some animal groups never really got the hang of this; for example, the few crustaceans that successfully invaded land, such as woodlice, are restricted to damp places to this day. Others, such as arachnids, evolved more-or-less waterproof cuticles and eggs, so that they were able to leave water far behind and occupy even the most inhospitable, arid environments on Earth."
Etymology
Named by its discoverer in 1909, after the place where it was found. It was found in or near the Burgess Pass, next to or on Mount Burgess, Yoho National Park, in the Canadian Rockies, by Charles Doolittle Walcott. As for which person with surname Burgess the pass and the mountain were named for, and the etymology of the surname Burgess itself, see Mount Burgess § History and see Burgess.