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The Fossils of the Burgess Shale (Derek Briggs, Douglas Erwin & Frederick Collier, 1994)

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ISBN 1-5609-8659-X

Further Reading

By the Same Authors

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Similar Writing

The senior author, Derek Briggs, was one of Harry Whittington’s original team involved in the massive effort of re-examining and re-interpreting the Burgess Shale collections from Walcott’s Quarry and nearby.

The book begins with the obligatory scene-setting: a history of research and geological setting, followed by a few quick pages on Cambrian (or thereabouts) biotas, including an interesting page or two about the Ediacarans.

But then the authors get down to business describing the biota itself – page after page after page of stunning photographs and concise descriptions of more than eighty fossil taxa, including all your favourites: Thaumaptilon, Marrella, Sidneyia, Anomalocaris ... they’re all here.

Not for the general reader but for anyone interested in the Burgess Shale organisms themselves, rather than the human efforts surrounding them, this book is the best: fascinating and authoritative.

Recommendation: Highly recommended.

Look and Feel: Paperback; nice paper with high quality, high resolution b&w photographs; careful, accurate descriptions for the lay reader, but by no means a text book.

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