New Cambrian Fossil Quarry Beats Burgess Shale

A new outcrop of the Burgess Shale formation in Canada appears to be richer and more diverse than the original.

Live Science calls it a Mother Lode – a new outcrop of Cambrian fossils in Kootenay National Park, Canada, that is revealing more species in more detail than the famous Burgess Shale, a World Heritage site.  It’s about 26 miles southeast of the Burgess site in Yoho National Park.  Already, researchers have found 3,000 fossils of 55 species, 15 of which are new to science, the article says (a photo gallery shows some of the specimens).  The rate they’re finding new fossils is “astonishing,” diggers say.  They are keeping the location of the “Marble Canyon” site secret to prevent looting.

The find is published in Nature Communications, which states: “The presence of the stem arthropods Misszhouia and Primicaris, previously known only from the early Cambrian of China, suggests that the palaeogeographic ranges and longevity of Burgess Shale taxa may be underestimated.”

The preservation appears to be even better than at Burgess.  The article describe the soft tissue impressions:

Many of the fossils at the new site are better preserved than their quarry counterparts, the researchers report. The new fossils reveal the internal organs of several different arthropods, the most common type of animal in both the new and old Burgess Shale locations. Retinas, corneas, neural tissue, guts and even a possible heart and liver were found.

“This is the first time we’re seeing these details,” Gaines said.

Some surprises include: (1) Finding similar fossils to the Chinese ones at Chengjiang that were thought to have gone extinct 10 million years earlier.  “Until now, researchers thought these Cambrian animals went extinct by the time the Burgess Shale formed.  Their discovery in Canada means that many Cambrian life forms were more widespread and longer-lived than previously thought,” the article states.  (2) There are fewer sessile marine fossils at the new site, which researchers think is 100,000 years younger than Burgess.  (3) The rocks at Marble Canyon have a different lithology than at Burgess.

Contorted strata in Kootenay National Park

The article mentions the Cambrian explosion but none of the problems, explaining away the invention of new body plans with complex organs (“retinas, corneas, neural tissue, guts and even a possible heart and liver”) with a quick reference to hard parts to cover the hard parts of this embarrassing conundrum for Darwinian evolution:

Other arthropods developed hard parts, such as shells, to protect themselves from their fellow predators. This “arms race” between predator and prey is one of the drivers of the Cambrian explosion, scientists think.

Some scientists think otherwise: including Stephen Meyer, whose best-selling book Darwin’s Doubt not only dismissed Darwinian evolution, but explained how intelligent design is the only cause sufficient to produce new body plans.

So these dumb animals “developed” hard parts.  Right.  They did it “to protect themselves.”  They met in war rooms to discuss plans for their “arms race.”  They “drove” evolution.  This is all the fallacy of personification.  It won’t work for a theory that champions unplanned, unguided, aimless, blind natural processes.  Read Darwin’s Doubt, and watch the Illustra documentary Darwin’s Dilemma.

This discovery spells trouble not only for Darwinian evolution, but for old-earth creationism.  Notice how the evolutionists toss around millions of years recklessly; 100,000 years between the Burgess and Marble Canyon outcrops, 10 million years earlier for the Chinese site – yet they all have basically the same creatures in the same habitats.  Do they know these dates?  No!  It’s all made up to fit their made-up evolutionary timescale, that is crumbling anyway under the Cambrian explosion.  If we can’t trust them with that, why should we trust them with dating?  It’s like dealing with known liars.  You can’t trust anything else they say.  Theistic evolutionists and old earthers should consider the source of their trust in those dates.

What this also means is that these outcrops are just the tip of the iceberg.  The same fossils in the same strata from Canada to China – think of it!  Something happened to them that prevented the normal process of decay when animals die.  They were all buried so quickly, even their corneas and hearts were preserved.  What could do that?  Hint: it was global, and it took one year, not 10 million.

Evolutionists have wiped out.  Stop trusting their Darwine-inebriated notions.  Let the evidence speak for itself – outside the Darwin box.