Posted by Stuart Gold
on September 27, 1997 at 15:51:01:
The two fossils that I sent an image of were found at about
4500ft high in the high desert nore west of Dealth Valley in an area called
Salene Valley. There are a lot of Cambrian and Precambrian areas there.
These shale outcroppings represent some of the oldest rock in the continental
US.
The same area was originally mapped and investigated by C.D. Walcott himself
a year befor he found the Burgess Shale in Canada. Of course, aftert that,
he spent the rest of his life working the Canadian site as the Fossils at
the Burgess Shale were much better preserved. Metamorphed rock, has both
a certain look base on the fact that the rock has been subject to tremendous
pressure and temperature for millions or hundreds of millions of years.
Much of the rock that comes out of cambrian (but not all) and pre-cambrian
areas of Salene Valley, have that look of rock that has almost been melted
but as you can see, there is still much to see.
Trace fossils are quite interesting as it's sometime very difficult to figure
out exactly what they are, either the remain of actual past life or the
result of the past life's interaction with it's environment, i.e. wormholes,
burrows, tracks or trails.
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